Stoke The Fire
Race entries
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Wednesday
1 May
3:40 PM
Stoke The Fire
Punchestown - The Louis Fitzgerald Hotel Hurdle
Jumps
(Punchestown Festival Handicap)
Entered
Jockey TBC
“Operation Irish Cesarewitch & Other Festivals."
We are delighted to have privately purchased Stoke The Fire, to stay in training with WILLIE MULLINS. This is a unique and scintillating opportunity to have a, potentially, top class horse with the Closutton maestro.
Having been brought along steadily by Willie, this exciting and progressive 5yo, by Coolmore's NH stallion VADAMOS, has pretty much all his career ahead of him - with the primary Flat target with this horse, being the €500,000 Irish Cesarewitch, which will be held at The Curragh in September 2024. It’s a race where the winner earns €324,000 and even the runner up ‘bags’ €114,000. Willie is of the opinion this fellow is the ideal sort for the race; we’re working back from it.
Each and every time Willie has stepped Stoke The Fire up in trip, he has found further improvement, and there’s no reason why this theme should not continue, going forward. He very nearly won a €53,000 to the winner 'Premier Handicap' at Naas, last time out:
Of course, races like the Ascot Stakes at the Royal meeting and the Newmarket Cesarewitch will be under serious consideration too, as will top class handicaps at the Galway Festival.
We’ve yet to tell the whole tale however, for a significant part of Stoke The Fire’s future will take place over hurdles, this Winter, where we’d hope to target races at, potentially, Cheltenham, Punchestown, Aintree and Galway. He could be top class at the NH game, and, lest we forget, horses of this ilk, tend not to peak until they’re 6yo or 7yo. What an unbelievably exciting few years we could have ahead of us, mixing BOTH codes.
He’s a Festival horse, both Flat and Jumps we’d envisage, and he’ll be trained by, arguably, the best trainer in the business
25th January- Read a Racing Post article about him, here: https://www.racingpost.com/news/ireland/middleham-park-racing-excited-by-link-up-with-willie-mullins-as-novice-hurdler-receives-cheltenham-festival-entries-aj7vj0K8j3uh/ (We have added screenshots of the article in the gallery, if you can't get access to the story.)