Barry Connell is “expecting a massive run” from Marine Nationale in the Paddy’s Rewards Club Chase at Leopardstown on December 27th.
Winner of the 2023 Sky Bet Supreme, the seven-year-old was restricted to just two starts over fences last season and finished seven-and-a-half lengths adrift of Quilixios on his return at Naas in November.
However the trainer told Tuesday’s Nick Luck Daily Podcast: “He’s about to bloom again. He had a very truncated novice season and only had two runs and we went into the race at Naas to give him a prep before Christmas and I thought he ran respectably well. We’d left plenty to work on and around October time a couple of our were running OK but just not all singing and all dancing.
“The winner had been to Cheltenham and Aintree and was battle-hardened so I thought it was a perfectly respectable comeback run.”
And the signs at home since have been very positive.
“What I did was organise to get into Punchestown after the John Durkan meeting with Marine Nationale and Good Land just to give then an extra piece of experience before he went to the Grade One.
“Sean Flanagan rode him and couldn’t have been happier, he jumped and travelled brilliantly and his work at home has been excellent, back to where it was before he went to Cheltenham last year.
“It doesn’t take much to be a forgotten horse, just ask Nicky Henderson about Constitution Hill, but we’ll be coming in under the radar and all guns blazing on the 27th. I'm expecting a massive run from him."
Good Land, a Grade One-winning novice hurdler at the 2023 Dublin Racing Festival, came back from 21 months off to finish third behind Ile Atlantique at Navan on his chasing debut earlier this month.
He has a few Christmas options with a trip to Limerick the most likely at this stage.
“It’s very ground dependant. We’ve had a very dry spell and luckily, we got a window at Navan when it rained and the ground was soft. This horse has a history of leg problems, and it will be ground dependant on where he goes but there’s a beginners’ chase at Leopardstown and one at Fairyhouse on New Year’s Day,” Connell explained.
“In all likelihood the ground will be good there so we’re leaning towards running him at Limerick. Nine times out of ten you will get soft ground there so that’s the plan.
“He wasn’t drilled before his comeback so we would be expecting improvement. The rider said he took a big blow between the last two fences and he wasn’t hard on him.
“If you look at he way he travelled, he travelled into it really well, jumped great and ran a fine race. In terms of jumping, I think fences are going to be a plus for him. We haven’t worked him really hard before this run but on the face of the run in Navan, it was probably a deep enough race, and I think he acquitted himself really well.”
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