A good omen for Go Native?

Athenry-based Martin Cullinane, the man responsible for selling Champion Hurdle favourite, Go Native to the Docado Syndicate, could hardly have his own string in better form, a winner on consecutive days at the Durrow point-to-point a couple of weekends back being topped by a four-timer at Belclare in Tuam yesterday.

Cullinane spoke to Keith Finnegan's Mid Morning Show on Galway Bay FM on Friday, when that flagship programme was broadcast from the Park House Hotel on Eyre Square, base of the Docado Syndicate.

Asked by Finnegan if he was sorry that he let Go Native go, Cullinane commented: "Not one bit, that's what keeps you in business. If you could sell a Go Native to everyone it would be great. I bought him as a foal out of a field in County Down. He was always a kind of a good active individual - a nice head on him and a good mover.

"We had him here for three years, we got him broken and he looked okay and when Kitty (Carr) asked me about a horse one night, that was the first horse I thought of. I'd say it was three or four months before we mentioned it again and they came out one morning and sure the rest is history.

"I've followed him all the way since. I only wish I was having this interview after him winning the race on Tuesday. I'm hopeful that I'll get to Cheltenham. I'm delighted for the syndicate and I'd suppose it's great for me to have sold a horse like that.

"I sold a winner in Cheltenham before, in the Foxhunters, a horse called Kingscliff (2003). I sold another horse, Kicks For Free (2nd actually beaten just a nose in the 2008 Coral Cup) he was just beaten a head, Paul Nicholls horse. Hopefully this guy will go the whole way."