My Immortal relishes heavy ground to cause 40/1 shock My Immortal caused a 40/1 shock when stretching clear on the run-in under amateur Finny Maguire to land the €100,000 1xbet.ie Grand National Trial Handicap Chase at Punchestown. The Shantou gelding was bridging a gap of four years since his last victory which was also on testing ground at this venue in a 3m handicap hurdle. Maguire had the outsider prominent throughout and with plenty still in contention entering the straight of this 3m3f event, he struck the front after the penultimate fence. Owned and trained by Barry Connell, My Immortal drew clear on the run-in to beat Uncle Pat by five lengths with Built By Ballymore just a neck further back in third. Connell said, “We ran him in Galway in October and it’s usually bottomless there but I ran three horses there and they all came back jarred. “I ran him back in Leopardstown and the ground was grand for horses that want good ground, but he just didn’t like it, minded himself and pulled himself up. “Last year we had a couple of horses, him and Hgranca De Thaix, that were never right. “The way that he’s been working at home I was expecting a big run from him today. All we needed was the ground. He’d stay any trip. “I’ll probably enter him for the Midlands National. He’s going to get 10lb for that so that would make him 135 and he’d probably get in off bottom weight. “We are going to run out of places for soft ground fairly soon. I might stick him in the Leinster National as well, that closes next week. He could be one for the Welsh National next year. “Finny gave him an unbelievable ride, he got him into some rhythm. It’s great to have him in the yard, Sean rides most of them but we try to give Finny as many chances as we can.” The winner ran without cheekpieces today and Connell added, “He wasn’t wearing them at home. We put visors on him last year and you may as well be putting a cornflake packet on his head! “He wasn’t right last year, and the ground was the reason this year. He’s not ungenuine. Today was a 100 grand handicap, with a ten-year-old, so happy days.” Quotes by Gary Carson
