Black Poppy blossoms for Kerry Lee in Swinton Hurdle

Decision to hang fire on novice chasing pays off in valuable Haydock handicap.

Kerry Lee’s Black Poppy defied a career-high mark to gallop to a tough success in the Pertemps Network Swinton Handicap Hurdle at Haydock.

The seven-year-old has posted two good runs this year, finishing third in a Newbury handicap and then winning a similar Cheltenham contest last time out, for which he went up 5lb.

But that proved no barrier to success, as under Adam Wedge the 10-1 chance fought hard on the run to the line, capitalising on a last-flight error from Teddy Blue to pull clear and prevail by a length and a quarter.

“He’s run a super race, going into it I was concerned it might all be a bit quick for him given Cheltenham and Haydock are nothing alike,” said Lee, whose runner picked up just short of GBP 57,000 for first place.

“We decided that he was very well, the plan was actually to go novice chasing with him but there were no sensible novice chases around so we thought we’d have a go at this. He’s come up trumps and I thought it was a cracking ride from Adam.

“I’ll have to have a think about what to do with him now, I’ll talk to the lads!

“I was going to find a chase for him but now he’s run like that over hurdles, I’m sort of wondering why you’d want to.

“Until the tables turned for him at Cheltenham he had had a pretty miserable season and his owners have been very patient and very loyal, it’s great to be able to reward that.”

Wedge added: “It’s great for me to able to get the season off to a good start with a nice race like that.

“It’s panned out pretty well for me to be fair, he’s jumped the first couple a bit big.

“Kerry said he’s been schooling fences at home, once he’s got into his rhythm down the back he was very good, very quick. He’s got me into the race nicely.

“They were keen to be a bit handier on a flat course today and it’s all worked out very well.”

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