El Kaldoun Jumps to Victory on Chase Debut
Sun 11 Oct 2020
OUR 58th WINNER OF 2020: EL KALDOUN, trained by Nicky Henderson OBE and ridden by Jeremiah McGrath: 'The Campbell & Rowley Event Management Novices Handicap Chase' over 2m 4f at Hexham.
We saw the 'start' of the Jumps season really get going yesterday and what a way to begin a Chasing career, with an impressive win from El Kaldoun at Hexham! He made all the running, with his ears pricked and enjoying himself - Jeremiah only needing to shake the reins approaching the last. He ran on well in the run-in, pulling 8.5 lengths away.
Watch the race replay here: https://www.attheraces.com/racecard/Hexham/10-October-2020/1225
See the official photos here: https://www.grossick.co.uk/p/80532khg/C377467604/x1-el-kaldoun
After the race, in his interview with Andrew Thornton, on At The Races, Jeremiah said "We have always liked him at home and at 17hh he's been a chaser in the making. His schooling has been good so we made the best use of his jumping to be positive. He had tons left in the tank."
Our National Hunt manager Tom Palin says: "He had a little look at the first couple of fences and then never put a foot wrong once he worked out what he needed to do! He handled the conditions, jumped very well and I am made up for his owners. To see your horse in front and jumping boldly like that was a sight we all enjoyed watching! Well done everyone."
At The Races have posted a Nicky Henderson stable tour after the weekend, with a nice mention of EL KALDOUN, as well as FATHER JOHN and MARIE'S ROCK. Read that here: http://jumps.attheraces.com/stable-tours/nicky-henderson
Our last 12 National Hunt runners have finished: 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 2nd, 1st, Fell, 2nd, 5th, 1st, 1st, 3rd and 2nd. Not bad we feel!
We have some very nice jumps horses raring to go and the reports received in the last few days from Gordon Elliott, Ben Pauling, Micky Hammond, Nicky Henderson OBE, Donald McCain, Paul Nicholls OBE and Colin Tizzard, about the horses that are not far off a run, mean that it's an exciting time for our winter National Hunt owners-all raring to go as the flat turf season draws to a close.
See all our National Hunt horses and the available shares in our new team for the 2020/21 season here: National Hunt Horses.