FACT TO FILE edged out Spillane’s Tower in a thrilling finish to the John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase, as last season’s crack novices got the better of established stars Galopin Des Champs and Fastorslow.
The latter pair looked to be in control of proceedings out in front for much of the contest, but Fact To File came cruising into contention under Mark Walsh once they turned for home.
He jumped the final fence in superb fashion to leap to the front past Galopin Des Champs, but Spillane’s Tower, carrying the second colours of winning owner JP McManus, was also finishing strongly and emerged as a serious threat on the run-in for Jack Kennedy.
However, Fact To File was always doing just enough and last season’s Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase victor scored by half a length at 7-2, giving Willie Mullins his 10th success in the race.
Stablemate Galopin Des Champs was two and a quarter lengths back in third and Fastorslow finished fourth.
The fact that one of the younger players will be denied a place on the world tour is being selfish by Tom!
@Ollie Fitzpatrick: anyone going to LIV is a tad selfish. They’re not going to grow the game.
Let’s all take our moral high ground hats off and be honest. I’d doubt there is a single person on here who would honestly turn down, the money the sudi’s are offering, on moral grounds. There are thousands of western people working in Saudi on construction sites, etc, simply because of the money on offer. We eat up American produce even though we know their foreign policy has killed millions of innocent people over the years. There doesn’t seem to be any soul searching about that. We seem more concerned with denial of rights than denial of the right to live these days.
Robbie keane didn’t get aa much attention when he went back to manage his Israeli team while Israel were slaughtering children in Gaza.