Carole’s Pass delights Amy Murphy with Exeter success

Mare hails from a famous family.

Carole’s Pass was the pride of the Murphy family on Sunday after her Exeter success reached as far as the safari reserves of South Africa.

The mare is trained by Amy Murphy and was bred by her father Paul and started out over fences this season having won twice over hurdles and a bumper.

She made her chasing debut in a Listed Exeter event and finished third over two miles, after which she stepped up to two and a half miles and was third again in the Yorkshire Silver Vase.

In the Lady Protectress at Huntingdon she was then unlucky to part company with Jack Quinlan as another horse fell in front of them, but there were no such hard luck stories at the weekend as she jumped without a glitch in another Listed event.

An 11-1 chance in a field of good mares, Carole’s Pass seemed to relish the step up to three miles and strode to an unchallenged seven-and-a-half-length success to secure black type font on her pedigree – a boon to her dedicated breeder who was watching on from another continent.

“We had her dam (Carole’s Spirit) and her grand dam (Carole’s Crusader), two generations of homebreds that dad has bred, which is really nice,” Murphy explained.

“He’s actually away on safari in South Africa and he somehow managed to watch it live, I even had a quick debrief with him.

“I rang him to give him the result and somehow he’d managed to get enough WiFi to watch it live and he already knew!”

Cheltenham is unlikely to feature in Carole’s Pass’ plans but the spring festivals in Ireland and Aintree could be a possibility for the bay.

“I’m delighted to get her a Listed win, she’s from a cracking family of chasers and this was always going to be her forte,” Murphy said.

“It’s easy to forget that she’s only a novice so for me it was a great performance.

“She’s been in top gear over two (miles) and two and a half, so Sunday she travelled round very sweetly and that probably is her trip.

“You wouldn’t have picked her out as the novice in the field, she put in a foot perfect round of jumping in that ground and we were really pleased.

“She’s only young so I don’t think she’s for Cheltenham this year but we will try and find her something in Ireland or Aintree.”

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