Jockey Angle with Paddy Flood: 'She's hard on the bridle at the end and still putting lengths between them' On this week's episode of ‘The Jockey Angle’, brought to you by William Hill, lead race analyst and jockey coach, Paddy Flood, analyses an impressive seasonal debut from the Willie Mullins-trained mare Witches Familiar, who was a ten-length winner of a Grade 3 Novice Hurdle in Gowran Park. Flood was particularly impressed with her slick hurdling and her positive attitude to racing - a mare well worth adding to your tracker. Race replays are FREE to watch from all Irish tracks and a selection of premier British tracks sponsored by William Hill. Paddy Flood’s Analysis This is a horse that you really need to be putting on your list. Witches Familiar trained by William Mullins and ridden by Paul Townend. She is in the Rich Ricci colours. This combination always turn up with a good mare. They have had a lot of good mares from Benie Des Dieux to Lossiemouth. I think this is one, I don't know if she'll get to that sort of level, but she's got the criteria for it. I was really, really impressed with her in Gowran. Watch her going through the hurdle. Paul Townend gives her the option to come out of his hands. Watch the full video What I love about this one is how neat she is and how close she can get to the hurdle and not lose any ground. She was able to sort her feet out within a half a stride and land running. There's a lot of horses that if they made a hurdle like that, at that sort of speed in a competitive race, would either take the hurdle from the roots and they'd lose two lengths or they would back off completely and lose ground. Paul has her just asleep in behind. Two decent horses in front of her again down to the next, measuring it absolutely perfect. I do watch horses' ears going to a hurdle and she'll just flick one little ear so it suggests that she's just really loving it watching what she's doing. She's just bending her knee basically, she's flicking that top bar and that's exactly what you want for a hurdler. You don't want a hurdler spending too long in the air. Now, it's a really nice thing to look at and it's really good if you want a picture for your mantle piece, but for a race scenario, you want them just clipping that top bar and getting from A to B as quickly as possible. She lands running and that is mustard in my opinion. She's hard on the bridle here at the end and she’s still putting lengths between them in my opinion. She is very, very good and she looks like a jockey's absolute dream to ride.
