cheltenham festival review
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HE 2021 CHELTENHAM FESTIVAL will be written into the annals of Irish bloodstock as a remarkable one for the country’s thoroughbred breeding industry as 20 of the 28 contests over the four days were won by horses bred in Ireland. Even more astoundingly the winners of nine of the 14 Grade 1 races were bred on the island, with three bred in Britain and just two in France, an unusually small return for French-breds at a meeting where they have enjoyed enormous success. There were 17 different stallions represented by winners with a trio – Jeremy, Stowaway and Yeats – siring four winners apiece, while Sholokhov and Flemensfirth each sired a brace of winners. There was more diversity amongst the broodmare sires with only three managing to double up – Turgeon, whose daughters produced Grade 1 winners Allaho and Vanillier, Saddler’s Hall had two Grade 2 winners in mares Colreevy and Telmesomethinggirl, while Supreme Leader was broodmare sire of the Gold Cup winner Minella Indo and Sky Pirate, winner of the Grand Annual Handicap Chase (G3) Authorized, whose diminutive but adored son Tiger Roll became just the third horse to win five times at The Festival with his third Cross-Country Chase success, emphasised how big a loss it was when the Turkish Jockey Club managed to buy him from Darley ahead of the 2020 breeding season – he was the only stallion to be sire and broodmare sire of a winner. In the latter case he combined with another enormous loss in Jeremy to produce the Grade 1 Champion Bumper winner Sir Gerhard. The Gold Cup winner Minella Indo is by the long-term Ballylinch Stud sire Beat Hollow. He is now the sire’s top-rated NH runner and leading prize-money earnertopping that title previously held by Wicklow Brave. Minella Indo was bred by the Lalor
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It was a Hollow victory A fantastic Cheltenham Festival meeting was topped by Gold Cup winner Minella Indo, a son of Beat Hollow, writes Aisling Crowe
family in 2013, the second year that beat Hollow stood in Ireland having moved from Juddmonte Farms’ Banstead Manor Stud. Minella Indo is out of the homebred Supreme Leader-winning chase mare Carrigeen Lily and was sourced as a foal at the Tattersalls Ireland November Foal Sale by John Nallen, who does most of his buying of NH horses as foals, for €24,000. Kept at his Clonmel base and coverted into a winning point-to-pointer he reappeared under Henry de Bromhead’s care after just that one point-to-point start as a five-yearold in 2018.
The eight-year-old has now run 16 times under Rules, won six races, finished third three times and second twice. Apart from his bumper, his debut run over hurdles and his first two starts over fences, he has not run out of NH graded company wining three Grade 1 races in the process. The other successful runner by Beat Hollow, who has a last crop of three-yearolds to sell this sumemr, and out of a Supreme Leader mare is also trained by De Bromhad – the six-year-old point-to-point winner Minella Escape owned by Alan Halsall. He had every chance of Grade 3
