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Mark Nunan

Mark Nunan

Easy win for Mengli Khan and Blackmore

Sun 6th Sep 2020, 17:11

  Mengli Khan and Rachael Blackmore Mengli Khan and Rachael Blackmore
© Photo Healy Racing

The McHale Straw Blower & Silage Feeder Chase was won by Mengli Khan (3/1) who was very much on a going day and made all for a wide margin victory.

On board for the first time, Rachael Blackmore got him into a good rhythm and he came home 26 lengths in front of 5/4 favourite Livelovelaugh

Second favourite Thosedaysaregone seemed to lose confidence at his fences from an early stage and trailed throughout.

A Grade 1 winner as a novice hurdler when he won the Royal Bond at Fairyhouse, Gordon Elliott’s successful Lope De Vega 7-year-old won his first chase at Punchestown in November 2018 but this was his first win over the larger obstacles since then.

He’s part of a sizeable draft of Gigginstown House Stud-owned horses due to be sold later this month at Doncaster in the Goffs UK September Horses-in-Training Sale.

Winning rider Blackmore (who picked up a one-day ban for unnecessarily using her whip when the race was clearly won) remarked: "He was very good.

“It was Eddie’s (O’Leary) instructions to ride him like that. He was spot on and it worked."

Additional reporting by Eamonn Murphy

About Mark Nunan
Mark has followed racing since he was a teenager and worked for many years as a broadcaster with the Irish version of Racecall. He joined the Press Association in 2019 and is also a contributor to the Racing Post. A native of Kildare, he now lives in Sligo.