Christmas options for exciting Monkfish

PA Sport Reporters
December 4, 2020 1:45 pm

Limerick or Leopardstown on the agenda following perfect start to chasing career.

Monkfish has options at Limerick and Leopardstown over Christmas following an almost faultless chasing debut last weekend.

Winner of the Albert Bartlett at Cheltenham in March for Willie Mullins, he always looked the type that would head straight over fences.

The six-year-old had no trouble in landing short odds at Fairyhouse and holds entries in the Matchbook Betting Exchange Faugheen Novice Steeplechase at Limerick and the Neville Hotels Novice Steeplechase over three miles at Leopardstown.

“He’s come out of the race very well and we’d always hoped given his size, his point-to-point background and his pedigree that he would make a chaser,” owner Rich Ricci’s racing manager Joe Chambers told the Nick Luck Daily Podcast.

“He did nothing at Fairyhouse to make us think otherwise, but he’ll have to come forward and step up again because the novice chasing pool is quite deep at the moment.

“It looks as though everybody wants to avoid Shishkin and Envoi Allen and they’re all going to have to gather in at some distance at some point.

“He’ll run somewhere at Christmas, either at Limerick in the Grade One or at Leopardstown, and we’ll see how we get on.”

He added: “We’re obviously hugely excited, I know Paul (Townend) is hugely excited as well.

“His schooling had gone well, I think he made one small mistake (at Fairyhouse), but he was pretty good in the main, he’s got a lovely way of going for such a tall horse.”