Gavin Cromwell’s Hello Neighbour ensured that Willie Mullins would be unable to repeat his clean sweep of Dublin Racing Festival Grade Ones when grimly holding on to win the Gannon’s City Recovery & Recycling Services Juvenile Hurdle at Leopardstown.
Having won all eight Grade Ones at the two-day event 12 months ago, many were predicting the champion trainer would do the same again – and having won the first available with Final Demand, the bookies were quaking.
However, in the build-up to the meeting, the juvenile race perhaps looked the most difficult for Mullins, given Cromwell’s Hello Neighbour brought such smart form from the Flat and had made a winning hurdling debut.
Mullins did eventually have the favourite in Sainte Lucie following sustained support but she ruined her chance by pulling hard behind the slow pace set by Danny Mullins on Sony Bill.
Hello Neighbour (85-40) travelled sweetly and jumped with aplomb throughout for Keith Donoghue and when he took over at the head of affairs, they looked like going away to win well.
There was perhaps not as much response as anticipated, though, and Joseph O’Brien’s filly Galileo Dame closed to within three-quarters of a length, with the same distance back to Lady Vega Allen.
The winner was cut to 11-2 from 8-1 for the Triumph Hurdle behind 7-4 favourite Lulamba by Betfair.
“I’m just thrilled to win a Grade One. I haven’t won a Grade One in Ireland for over four years, that’s just the nature of how competitive it is here,” said Cromwell, who struck at elite level on home turf with Flooring Porter back in December 2020.
“He’s a proper one. I brought him along slowly and he’s answered every call, hopefully he’ll improve again.
“We’ve always liked him and he’s progressive. I was very pushy to get someone to buy him and thankfully Paddy and Yvonne (Sheanon) did.
“Fair play to Paddy, he was brave and put the money out, he’s getting rewarded.
“He was still a little bit keen but I think he’s going to learn every day. He’s a straightforward horse but he just wants to get on with it, he’ll be fine. The more he does, the more he’ll improve.”
When asked how the form would measure up with the English horses, he added: “You don’t know until they meet. They look very good, they are very smart, and we’ll know early in March.”
Donoghue said: “It was a good performance. He settled a little bit better today, but he’s still learning. He’s still a little bit too keen in snatches but the hood helped a bit.
“His jumping got better as the race went on and a good jump two out put me in a good position.
“The plan was to get cover, get him settled, and try to get him to do things right for the future.
“He did too much wrong here the last day and he is still only learning. He still did plenty wrong today as well, so hopefully he will learn from it.
“That’s two out of two now, so hopefully he will progress again for Cheltenham. He’s very exciting – if we can keep a lid on him, hopefully he’ll have a great chance.”