NAAS last Sunday was an anomaly in the current Irish jumps season as it was run on testing ground; prior to that meeting, there had only been 15 races run during the 2024/’25 campaign with heavy in the going description – the meetings at Tramore on November 26th and New Year’s Day, along with a handful of races at Listowel.

I was against both feature race winners, The Yellow Clay and Ile Atlantique, though at least in the case of The Yellow Clay in the Lawlor’s of Naas it was ground-related, the idea being that he would prefer a sounder surface, and this was reinforced by the comments from connections afterwards.

Gordon Elliott said that he ‘was very worried about the ground’ and that Sam Ewing felt ‘he hated the ground’ so this eight-length win opens up the strong possibility of an even bigger performance on a faster surface.

The Elliott team again executed their tactics well, Wingmen making the running at a good clip and bringing the stamina of The Yellow Clay into play while also testing the jumping of the others, and this race set up perfectly for the winner in terms of pace and track position, ground notwithstanding.

The runner-up Supersundae was eight lengths back which seems a sizeable amount, but it was interesting to hear Patrick Mullins felt he could get a lot closer next time. Perhaps this is just jockey spin but there is a case to be made that he can get at least some of the ground back.

Out of his ground

He was returning from a 243-day break, racing on going slower than he had encountered before, and over-raced for much of the contest which forced his rider to take back to settle him, which left him a little out of his ground in the final half mile, The Yellow Clay getting first run.

His jumping was notably slick – this was his fifth hurdles run – and the biggest positive in him is the improvement his trainer will likely get from him next time; perhaps the Mullins horses have not been coming on as well as expected for their first run of the season in recent weeks but we have years of evidence to say they will take a leap forward for the spring. He looks overpriced at 25/1 and bigger for the Turners Novices’ Hurdle.

It is hard to be anything like as positive about the fourth, Jasmin De Vaux.

Negative interviews

I can’t recall a more negative set of interviews from Willie Mullins, both pre- and post-race, about a horse that had won a Champion Bumper, and his maiden hurdle win had also worked out well.

Asked about the favourite beforehand by Gary O’Brien on Racing TV, Mullins said his schooling had been interrupted by a slight overreach and that they were ‘concentrating on not losing ground [rather than] making ground’ and that is what transpired in the race.

When O’Brien followed up on this afterwards, Mullins responded with a ‘what else can we do’ and it was hard to tell whether he was more bemused or despairing at how Jasmin De Vaux had hurdled. A confidence builder at a lower level seems the plan.

The performance of Ile Atlantique in the Racing Post Novice Chase would have left Mullins in better form.

There was a doubt about whether he would back up an impressive seasonal debut, something he had failed to do in his two previous seasons with the yard, but he jumped slickly and showed a sharp burst of speed after the last, the runner-up Firefox leading at that point but Ile Atlantique picking him up quickly for minimal urging from Paul Townend.

Mullins suggested afterwards that slow ground is a help – his form figures since arriving to Ireland on soft or worse are 112311 – though he left the impression that Majborough and Ballyburn were still the main stable novice chasers. The likes of Champ Kiely and Impaire Et Passe are there too.

Should Ile Atlantique head for the DRF, he would likely be up against at least one of those, though if Majborough were in the same race Townend would have the option of keeping the ride.

Fun in favour

Ile Atlantique was not the only Mullins-trained novice chase winner on the card, Fun Fun Fun similarly impressive in opening mares beginners’ chase, charting the same outside route as her stablemate.

She had not looked an obvious one for chasing, nor for this intermediate trip, but she handled both well, jumping aggressively and winning easily to beat two race-fit mares with chasing experience from the same yard.

Though light on experience for the Mares’ Chase at Cheltenham, novices have done well in that contest, and it looks a decent race for a bet at the moment.

The favourite, Dinoblue, has disappointed twice this season, the tongue-tie applied second time having minimal effect, while the second favourite Impervious has been off a long time.

THERE has been little racing over the past week which gave some time to look back at Limerick over Christmas.

This was not the Limerick Christmas meeting of your parents, the ground much quicker than is typically the case, Simon Torrens describing it as the slow side of yielding after winning the opener on the second day.

That atypically faster ground likely helped Impaire Et Passe in the Faugheen Novice Chase, and - as on chase debut at Fairyhouse in December - he won through speed, held up for a late run and quickening up well, his jumping again assured.

Having apparently been disappointing in the first half of his second season over hurdles when beaten three times at short prices, it is only fair to look back now and see what he was up against – State Man (twice), Teahupoo and a rejuvenated Bob Olinger – and acknowledge that those runs weren’t so bad after all, at least two of them approaching 160 level.

Given a break after the Irish Champion Hurdle last February, he has since won four in a row, though a Cheltenham run seems unlikely as Willie Mullins suggested there is no race for him there as two and a half miles is his preferred trip.

There is a race for him at the DRF, but the two Grade 1s over the intermediate trip at Aintree and Fairyhouse are only 17 days apart.

Behind him at Limerick were a couple of horses that may be interesting up in trip. A return to three miles is likely to suit the third Search For Glory, and the fourth-placed Good Land seems to have been brought along slowly this season returning from injury.

Standout novice performance

The standout novice hurdle performance at Limerick came from The Big Westerner and she improved from debut along the same lines as a number of other Henry de Bromhead maiden hurdle runners this season.

She had plenty in hand when winning a steadily run Grade 2 on St Stephen’s Day, a big jump two out showing how much she had left, and the Albert Bartlett Hurdle is her target, though she is light on experience for a race like that.

Another likely candidate for graded novice hurdles emerged on the third day of the meeting in Final Demand. Talked up by Willie Mullins and strong in the market beforehand, he had little to beat but still left a striking visual impression.