Walsh leads Fact To File to stylish win in Ryanair Chase
Mark Walsh on Fact To File celebrates after winning The Ryanair Chase Photo: ©INPHO/Tom Maher
Clane jockey Mark Walsh led Fact To File (6-4 Favourite) to a hugely impressive win at The Festival when coming home the comfortable winner of today’s Ryanair Chase.
Last season’s Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase hero came home the comfortable nine length winner from Heart Wood.
It was an 81st Festival success for owner J P McManus.
The wining rider Walsh said: “That was brilliant. That sort of distance suits him, as you can let him gallop on and let him use his jumping. He never missed a beat today, he winged everything and he’s just happier going on that stride. We were seeing if he could make a Gold Cup horse, we ran into Galopin Des Champs twice, we tried two different things and it didn’t work, so there’s no point trying it a third time.”
He added: “I was struggling to pull him up! Even coming up by the junction of the track here, he heard all the crowd on my left shouting, and he started pricking his ears and ducking away from them, so there’s loads left.”
Asked how much he is relishing his extraordinary book of rides this week, he said: “I love it. It’s what you dream of, to be riding horses like this. I’m in a privileged position to be riding these horses and I’m very grateful.”
Successful trainer Willie Mullins said next year's Gold Cup will now be the target for the horse.
“They went a good gallop, he stayed with them and got all his jumping right, and off the bend, I don’t think Mark was worried; he just had to get over the last two fences and he did that well.
“The manner of the way in which he won was a bit of a surprise, but I felt coming here he’d win it. But the others were good horses, anyone would love to have them.
“I do agree that he might have been the horse to give Galopin Des Champs a battle tomorrow in the Gold Cup and he was in it, but he felt it was better to bide our options. He’ll probably be a Gold Cup horse next year. He’ll be a year older and we felt that at this stage a hard race in the Gold Cup, if the ground turned up soft… It’s not like that, but that was the way I was thinking all season. JP [McManus] didn’t want him to have a very hard race in the Gold Cup this year - sometimes that can ruin a horse’s career. So next year - I’m not going to say any more about two-year plans after Lossiemouth, but another year might be right. I think that’s what we’re looking at.
“I can see where JP [McManus] was coming from originally [about not running in the Gold Cup].
0“Probably some people after the Irish Gold Cup might not have thought that he fully stayed it - maybe it was a year too soon.”
