Stayers’ Hurdle glory could see Paisley Park bow out at the top

PA Sports Reporters
March 6, 2024 2:38 pm

Emma Lavelle’s pride and joy ready to regain his Cheltenham crown.

Emma Lavelle is ready to let Paisley Park go out in a blaze of glory if he can win a second Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival next week.

It is five years since the veteran claimed the Grade One contest and while he disappointed when bidding for back-to-back wins 12 months later, he finished third in both 2021 and 2022.

It looked as though his best days were behind him when only seventh in last year’s renewal, but he has defied his advancing years with three excellent runs this winter, finishing second in the Long Distance Hurdle, the Long Walk and the Cleeve Hurdle, beaten a head, a short head and a head respectively.

There would be few more popular winners at this year’s Festival than Paisley Park if he can take back his crown on Thursday week and Lavelle could not be happier with his condition.

Emma Lavelle at Cheltenham (David Davies/PA)

“Touch wood he’s in very good form, everything has gone to plan with him. He’s in really good order and it’s all systems go for Cheltenham,” she told talkSPORT.

“It’s a massive ask for a 12-year-old, but he’s not your everyday 12-year-old, so who knows?

“I look through the race and I think there’s a lot of horses in there that we’ve met, that we’ve beaten or have just beaten us. There are a couple of new Irish pretenders, (but) I just kind of feel in that race anything can happen.

“It has leant itself over the years to the hardened professional, rather than it being the upcoming young gun that’s done it.

“It puts him there with chance and fingers crossed – he knows his way round there!”

While Lavelle feels Paisley Park is still loving life at a racehorse, she admits it would be a fitting way for him retire if he was to strike gold on return to Prestbury Park.

She added: “If he won it there’d be no question you’d say ‘that’s it’, because I think it would be an extraordinary beginning and end to his career that way having won it five years previous, to come back and do it again would be an extraordinary achievement.

“It seems funny to say you’d retire a horse if it won but you wouldn’t necessarily retire it if it didn’t, but the reality is you’re a long time retired in this game for a horse – he’s 12, but loving what he’s doing

“If it’s the right thing to stop we will and if it’s not and he’s still loving it and seems happy back in work at the start of next season then I’ll probably bring him back for another run, because no horse keeps going for the number of years that he has if it’s not something he enjoys doing.

“He writes his own script, he doesn’t let anyone else do it for him. We’ll let the horse make the decision, he’s the one out there doing it and we’re all just bowing to his greatness.”