News: 19 October 2011

Another Cheltenham Winner for COURT CAVE ….and another 4yo Bumper Winner for KALANISI

When the first Cheltenham meeting of the season takes place in October, it's a sure sign that the national hunt season proper has kicked into gear.
Given it's profile as the home of National Hunt racing, a Cheltenham winner for any young sire is worth it's weight in gold. Hence, when Champion Court powered up the hill to a Grade 2 novice hurdle victory at last year's November meeting, it further enhanced Court Cave's growing reputation as a young sire of considerable potential.

Fast forward to last week's October Showcase meeting, and Cheltenham win number two for the sire was notched by another Martin Keighley trained gelding from Court Cave's first crop! This time it was COURT IN SESSION who landed the spoils by winning the Lemington Maiden Hurdle over 2 miles on just his 2nd start over hurdles. This was Martin's 5th win at his local track and lets hope his Court Cave inmates provide him with many more!

COURT IN SESSION made all the running and apart from the missing the 4th last he jumped well throughout. Despite running green after the last, he battled on well to win over what was an inadequate trip. Purchased for £30,000 by Gerry Hogan at the Doncaster May Sales (as was Champion Court a year previously), COURT SESSION had recorded 4 wins in point to points in Ireland, with one of those wins being the fastest recorded time of the 2010/11 season.

Bred by Niall Kelly in Co. Carlow, COURT IN SESSION is the first foal out of the un-raced Jurado mare Dangerous Dolly, who returned to Court Cave this year and is in foal.

Who do you think was Court Cave’s 1st Irish runner over fences?! Whodoyouthink, of course!

Whodoyouthink became Court Cave’s 1st Irish runner over fences when lining up for the Grade 3 Buck House Novice Chase on 13th October last at Punchestown. It looked a tall order on his chase debut but Whodoyouthink jumped like a seasoned pro and disputing the lead throughout, he was still in contention turning into the home straight. At this point, it looked as is the smooth travelling Lucky William was going to run out a convincing winner. However, Whodoyouthink dug deep and battled the whole way up the straight, eventually going down by a length to the much more experienced winner. This was an exceptionally good chasing debut and hopefully he can perform and win at this level throughout this season.

…..Another 4yo Bumper Winner for Kalanisi

From a very small crop of 4 year olds, Kalanisi sired another 4yo Bumper winner recently in the shape of the Willie Mullins trained KOKO LANE. In the colours of Justin Carthy, KOKO LANE was going one better after his narrow defeat at Gowran Park recently.

This was Kalanisi’s 3rd 4yo bumper winner this season from a crop that numbers just 23 registered foals in GB/IRE. His other winners are the Joanna Morgan trained POND COTTAGE and also the 3 time bumper winning filly BAHIRA trained by Donald McCain.

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