Sam Twiston-Davies’s search for a winner continued fruitlessly here on Friday, as even a late switch from Exeter’s abandoned meeting to ride Ballyandy, the 11-10 favourite for the feature event, could not seal his first success since 9 October. Ballyandy ran well but he had no answer to the late, determined challenge of Messire Des Obeaux in the Grade Two Neptune Novice Hurdle and the winner could well develop into a realistic contender for a Grade One event at the Cheltenham Festival in March.
Messire Des Obeaux will certainly appreciate the hill at Cheltenham. He seemed to be running for third place behind Ballyandy and Cultivator with two hurdles still to jump. Neither could find a turn of foot to put the race to bed, however, and Messire Des Obeaux stayed on so strongly from the last that he surged past to record a half-length success with more authority than the margin might suggest.
Messire Des Obeaux was stepping up from a win in handicap company last time, and was also giving 7lb to Ballyandy, who has now failed to win in three starts over hurdles having run into a very useful opponent every time.
“I thought between the last two that we’d run very well and we were going to be a good third,” Alan King, the winner’s trainer, said. “And then he’s knuckled down really well. He’s not had a lot of racing and that’s probably the first time he’s had the gun put to his head really.
“Hopefully he’ll come on again and giving 7lb [to Ballyandy], it’s a good performance. We’ve always thought he was very good, but I was under no illusions, I thought this was a cracking Winter Hurdle, I’ve won it a few times but to me this is the most depth that there’s been in the race.
“He’s big and rangy and he’s hopefully going to get better. There’s only one thing putting me off the [Grade One] Challow Hurdle [next time], and that’s that my three previous winners of this have gone to the Challow and been lapped, so I’ll have to see. But it would seem the obvious place to go, and he’d be better again on even softer ground.”
Both Ballyandy and Messire Des Obeaux are quoted at around 20-1 for the Neptune Novice Hurdle in March, and though on this evidence it is the latter who makes much more appeal, there is also a chance that he could step up in trip to the three-mile Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle. “If he didn’t go to [the Challow at] Newbury, he’d go to Warwick for the Leamington [Novice Hurdle],” King said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if, come March, we’re looking at the three-miler.”
Getting a first win over hurdles into Ballyandy is turning into a frustrating task for Nigel Twiston-Davies, and the trainer was also thwarted on Friday when The New One, one of the best British-trained hurdlers of recent seasons, was denied a first run over fences when overnight frost forced the abandonment of the meeting at Exeter.
Exeter was called off in time for The New One to take up an engagement in the Grade One Henry VIII Novice Chase at Sandown on Saturday, but he was not among the final declarations and is now likely to make his first start of the season over hurdles, probably in the International Hurdle at Cheltenham’s meeting next weekend. The New One took the Grade One event in 2013 and 2014.
“It is very frustrating he didn’t run at Exeter. He had been absolutely superb at home and had not missed a bit,” Twiston-Davies said on Friday.
“We were very tempted to go for the Henry VIII, but he has been such a loyal servant we thought, why do that first time out over fences? What we intend on doing is to have a big look at the International Hurdle. It is a race he has won twice before and it is worth £130,000. If he was to win that then he may stay over hurdles, but I would still like to go over fences at some point.”