Cooldine can do Slattery Proud

Andy Slattery, the man who put Cheltenham hopes Cooldine and Quel Esprit on the path to the top, by winning point-to-points with the pair, has given the former a big vote of confidence for the RSA Chase by saying, "I'm not being biased but I think he is the nap of the meeting.

"Willie Mullins has had this race in mind for a long time - they think the world of him. I find it hard to see him beaten. The run in the novice chase at Leopardstown at Christmas (the Durkan New Homes Novice Chase) will have helped put that bit of speed into his jumping.

"I said to Willie the day he was buying him that he'd go to the top and I still honestly believe that. The ground makes no difference to him and to see how close he went in the Cheltenham bumper a couple of years ago (behind Cork All Star), for a horse that wouldn't be a bumper type, just shows how promising he always was.

"He was always a great jumper, we had an awful lot of schooling done with him before he ever ran. I bought him in Goffs for ten grand at the Land Rover Sale. There are a couple of winners, Brackenfield and Brackenheath, in his pedigree. I just loved him from the day I saw him - I couldn't believe he was so cheap.

"Willie bought him off me on the day that Missed That got killed. I was so busy that day that I never saw any of the papers or the tele-text or anything. Willie called to us after racing that day at Thurles, the horse had been killed that morning. After the deal was done I turned on the tele-text that evening and I had a fair idea he'd been bought for the O'Learys as a replacement for Missed That.

"The day that he'd won for us in Templemore (November 2006) they just hacked around and he was idling and looking around the place. He only got running going to the last fence, if he'd really got into his stride earlier he'd have probably won twenty lengths. He was only really racing for two furlongs.

"He was always a very willing horse to do anything with. He was idling out in front at Leopardstown the last day and from just knowing him I don't think he had as hard a race there as it might have looked. In a true run race at Cheltenham if he gets a lead to the turn-in, even if he is a length down at the last, they'll nothing grind him out of it up the hill.

"The faster they go there the better he'll jump - he is so athletic, he can really get himself out of trouble. We do a lot of schooling with the young horses before we gallop them. He was schooled over fences and he wouldn't have been broken eight weeks, going around a point-to-point track. He knows his job for a long time now.

"He would have been around a point-to-point track ten times before he ran. He'd only have been cantering but he'd have been jumping fifteen or sixteen fences every day. He would have had plenty of experience before he'd ever have run."

Meanwhile Quel Esprit is part of the Willie Mullins powerful squad for the Weatherbys Champion Bumper. Slattery says of this grey: "I never rated him as a bumper horse.

"Anything he'll do in a bumper is a bonus because he can jump! He is a real soft ground jumper. I saw him working the other day at Leopardstown and Sicilian Secret beat him well which wouldn't surprise me.

"Maybe he is after improving since we had him but the only way I could see him winning would be if Cheltenham turned up soft and it was a test of stamina, this fellow could jump off, something similar to Cooldine, and go a good gallop the whole way.

"He is a horse that could win a very good race over fences or hurdles. He loves soft ground. He is about sixteen two, a fine big horse. He doesn't know when to stop galloping. Often that Cheltenham bumper goes to a stamina horse, Alexander Banquet won it one year.

"Willie Mullins knows what is required to win that race. Quel Esprit wouldn't be a speed type that would come and do it, but he could grind out a result. If he got a good toe up there, handy the whole way, he'd still be in the same place at the finish. If he was two lengths down at the bottom of the hill, they'd have a fair job to keep ahead of him up the hill.

"My brother Willie bought him in Doncaster for 18,000 sterling. We brought him to the breeze-ups but we couldn't get a bid for him. He then went on to win a point-to-point well for us in Dundrum (March 2008).

"I wouldn't put too much pass on his bit of work the other day because he made the running there and that wouldn't suit him. He was in front for two fences in Dundrum and he was idling there with his ears pricked. If there was any bit of dig in the ground at Cheltenham and it required a bit of toughness, you wouldn't know, but anything he does in a bumper is a bonus because when he goes jumping he'll be a fair horse.

"We've sold plenty of nice horses to people that didn't work out but Willie is a great man to give a horse time and let them mature. He has given Cooldine and Quel Esprit light campaigns this season with the future in mind."

The Slattery's Meadowview Stables have made the headlines more than once at the breeze-up sales lately with a full-brother to Cooldine being sold for 100,000 sterling at Brightwells (Cheltenham) last December having been bought the previous June at Tattersalls in Fairyhouse for 35,000 Euros.

Success has also come for Meadowview in the flat racing world having sold Strike The Deal who later went on to win the Richmond Stakes and finish fourth in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile for Jeremy Noseda.

Slattery concluded: "I'd love to be in Cheltenham this year but this is our busiest time of year now. From now until May we'd be very busy, we have twenty pointers in, a lot of them mightn't run, they are all four-year-olds, some of them mightn't appear until October. We're trying to sort out the wheat from the chaff at the minute."

Eamonn Murphy