Lavelle looking to Paisley Park to roll back the years

Nick Robson
February 15, 2024 10:57 am

Popular veteran bidding for more Stayers’ gold.

Emma Lavelle says it would be “pretty cool” if Paisley Park manages to get his head in front in the Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle next month.

The popular 12-year-old will be running in the race for an incredible sixth time, and it will be his seventh appearance in all at the Festival. He won the race back in 2019 and finished third behind Flooring Porter in both 2021 and 2022.

While his career looked to be coming to an end when unplaced last year, he has been beaten in three tight finishes this term, including when narrowly denied by Crambo, one of the favourites for the Stayers’, in bidding for a remarkable fourth win in Ascot’s Long Walk Hurdle.

Crambo (right) just got the better of Paisley Park in the Long Walk (Steven Paston/PA)

“Touch wood he’s in great form, he had an easy week after the Cleeve and he’s back cantering away now,” said Lavelle.

“He’s had a little stride along the last couple of days and he thinks he’s King Kong, which I suppose is a good thing!

“There’s been nothing between him and Crambo or him and Noble Yeats who we had to give 6lb to (in the Cleeve Hurdle), and they are much shorter than him in the betting.

“There’s a lot of horses we’ve come up against already that are in the race and there are a few new ones, but if he brings his A-game, you’d have to hope he’d be in the shake up anyway.

“We love him to bits, but he doesn’t half put you through the ringer! He builds you up then sometimes he thinks ‘OK’, then sometimes he just thinks ‘nah, it’s not working for me today’. He’s extraordinary.”

She went on: “People say to me ‘will this be his last run at Cheltenham?’, but at the end of the day only he will decide. Look at where we were after the Stayers’ last year, it’s hard to believe he’s had three runs in two Grade Twos and a Grade One and and the combined distance he’s been beaten is less than a neck.

“Some of the horses he’s running against weren’t even born when he won his first Long Walk, like Paul Nicholls’ (Blueking D’Oroux), it’s ridiculous.

“If he was to win it would be pretty cool, but that’s his problem at the moment, he’s going racing and everyone is cheering him and telling him they love him so he thinks he’s won, we have to remind him he’s finished second!”