Former British point-to-pointers landed a double on Punchestown’s big Sunday racecard featuring the Gr.1 John Durkan Memorial Chase.
Touch Me Not, a five-year-old formerly trained in Warwickshire by Tom Ellis, showed heaps of potential when winning the Gr.2 BetVictor Craddockstown Novice Chase by six lengths from stablemate Farren Glory, who was sent off the 7/4 favourite. Later on the Punchestown card four-year-old Kalypso’chance, who entered point-to-pointing from the Yorkshire stable of Jack Teal, made a winning bumper debut with his eight rivals strung out well behind. He scored by 15 lengths – beating the Willie Mullins-trained Soir De Garde, a half-brother to ace hurdler State Man – with the third horse a further 27 lengths adrift, and immediately after the race was installed by Paddy Power as 6/1 favourite for the Gr.1 Weatherbys Champion Bumper at the Cheltenham Festival.
Both winners were trained by Gordon Elliott for Michael O’Leary’s Gigginstown House Stud, a shrewd combination which in recent years has stepped up to buy a number of young horses who began their racing careers in British point-to-points.
Touch Me Not made his pointing debut in March last year at Charm Park in Yorkshire. Ellis’s brother-in-law Jack Andrews was in the saddle and had steered his mount into a clear winning position when they came down at the final fence. A few days later, at Tattersalls Cheltenham’s Festival Sale, Elliott stepped in with a bid of £150,000 and brought the hammer down.
Touch Me Not won a maiden race over hurdles for his new trainer, but has matured and clearly taken to fences. After his win yesterday Elliott said: “He was very keen as a young horse and didn't show me anything. He was well down the pecking order, but he's come a long way in six months.”
Horses who began racing via the British pointing field with Teal have recorded two smart wins in recent days. On Friday Kdeux Saint Fray won at Ascot for Anthony Honeyball, before Kalypso’chance’s Punchestown win.
The last-named gelding was bought as a two-year-old store in France for €34,000 by Church Farm’s Roger Marley, then sent to Teal who was in the saddle when the gelding made a winning debut at Corbridge in April (pictured above on right, yellow cap). Soon after that he was added to Tattersalls Cheltenham's April Sale where he was sold to Elliott for £85,000.