Legendary Irish trainer Dermot Weld has ruled his smart mare Unaccompanied out of a bid for the Stan James Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival on March 13 and will instead look to switch her back to the Flat for her next outing, writes Elliot Slater.
Unaccompanied emerged as a lively outsider for the Champion Hurdle after beating the French Champion Hurdle winner Thousand Stars in the Grade 1 Istabraq Festival Hurdle at Leopardstown at the end of December, after which she was expected by many to make a race of it with reigning champion hurdler Hurricane Fly when the Willie Mullins-trained star made his belated seasonal reappearance at Leopardstown in late-January. Those following the best Cheltenham race odds online need to remember this.
Sent off the 11/4 second-favourite for the BHP Irish Champion Hurdle, Unaccompanied was never travelling with her normal zest and was clearly in trouble once the pace quickened going to the second from home. As Hurricane Fly powered clear in devastating fashion to confirm himself very much the one to beat back at Cheltenham in March, Weld’s mare faded tamely and in the end crossed the line some 39-lengths behind the winner, a long way back in fourth place.
No obvious reason for the poor performance from the daughter of Danehill Dancer has subsequently emerged and Weld and the five-year-old’s owners, the Moyglare Farm Stud, have decided that enough is enough for the time being over hurdles, although they haven’t completely ruled out the possibility of returning for the Punchestown Festival in May. The next target for last season’s JCB Triumph Hurdle runner-up will be to attempt a second successive win in the listed Alleged Stakes at the Curragh in April, a contest in which Unaccompanied surprised many pundits by beating the subsequent Coronation Cup and Breeders Cup Turf hero St Nicholas Abbey in 2011.
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