Another good leap from Bonny Kate under Sean Flanagan© Photo Healy Racing
The trip may have been three and a half miles on ground described as soft to heavy but one got the impression from early that front-runner Bonny Kate could be difficult to peg back in the Grade C racinguk.com/freetrial Grand National Trial Handicap Chase. So it proved as Sean Flanagan's mount registered a six length win.
Ruby Walsh was alive to the danger posed by the pace-setter and he soon had her in his sights aboard the favourite Baie Des Iles
The two mares had it to themselves from before the straight but Bonny Kate kept up the gallop and the sound jumping from there home to accomplish a win on handicap debut.
Bonny Kate is a sister to Thyestes runner-up Mala Beach (was first reserve for that race herself) and trainer Noel Meade said of the Mrs Patricia Hunt-owned six-year-old: "I thought she was reasonably well handicapped. She unseated early on in the north, so that's really only her third run over fences. I thought it safest to be out in front.
"She stays well and jumps well and you would have to be thinking of the Irish National. She's in the four-mile race at Cheltenham and that is also a possibility.
"She's a full-sister to Mala Beach, and I've never seen a mare to look so well this time of the year."
Bonny Kate is 16/1 from 33/1 for the National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham with Paddy Power.
(AM & EM)
