Irish Panther pounces to beat Kopek Des Bordes

Dual Grade One-winning hurdler Kopek Des Bordes only ran three times over fences last season, but may well have won the Arkle at Cheltenham in March but for a final fence blunder and looked poised to score at Punchestown the following month when falling two from home.

He was a 1-4 shot to get back on the winning trail on this seasonal reappearance at Grade Three level, but while his jumping was relatively sound, he was ultimately unable to lay a glove on Eddie and Patrick Harty’s stable star.

Irish Panther, who was only narrowly beaten in a Grade One at Leopardstown last Christmas, travelled strongly throughout in the slipstream of Kopek Des Bordes’ pacesetting stablemate Westport Cove and after hitting the front early in the straight, the 100-30 chance did not take his foot off the gas, coming home 10 lengths clear of the market leader without being fully extended.

“It was good, he promised to do all those kind of things last year,” said Eddie Harty.

“I would think Willie’s horse will improve, but I would hope our one will as well.”

Irish Panther is 10-1 from 25-1 with Coral for the Queen Mother Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, in which he finished sixth last season. Kopek Des Bordes was eased to 6-1 from 7-2 by the same firm.

Considering future plans, Harty added: “The obvious one (next race) is the two-mile at Christmas (at Leopardstown). He will be in open company but that’s what you are in now. He deserves his shot.

“He jumped great there and he’s won it fair and square. There were no hard luck stories, no horse made a mistake, no horse fell. He’s just won it on the day.

“It’s first time out for all of them, which one improves more during the course of the next four weeks will probably dictate the rest of the season, but we’ll take that.

“I can’t understand why some people had him down as a sketchy jumper, his forte is jumping and he never put a foot wrong today, and he has a big engine.

“We’re just lucky to have him at the time we have him. It’s great for Brian (Whelan) and Jen (Coyle), it’s their first venture together and what a horse they got.”

While Willie Mullins was disappointed to see Kopek Des Bordes suffer another defeat, he feels there were positives to take from his performance.

He said: “Looking at them in the parade ring, I thought the winner probably pulled out sharper than we did and I hope we’ve got a lot of improvement to do.

“I was much happier with the way he jumped. It was still not perfect, but I think a better pace and once he gets more confidence in his own jumping he’ll be good.

“I’m keen to stay over fences. Some people are saying go down the Champion Hurdle route, but I’m always keen to keep going down the chase route until you have to stop. He’ll run again over fences, possibly at Christmas.”