The Willie Mullins-trained Nichols Canyon and Shaneshill have arrived in Nashville for the 75th Annual Iroquois Steeplechase today, Saturday, May 14, set to face off against an impressive field of American and European-bred horses running for the first leg of the million-dollar Brown Advisory Iroquois Cheltenham Challenge.
Any horse that wins the three-mile Grade One Calvin Houghland Iroquois Hurdle Stakes and the Ryanair World Hurdle next March at Cheltenham will receive a $500,000 bonus and a total payout of nearly $1 million.
Nichols Canyon is a six-time Grade One winner and finished third in the Grade One Stan James Champion Hurdle over two miles at the Cheltenham Festival in March, behind his stable companion Annie Power, and Shaneshill nearly won the three-mile Grade One RSA Chase at Cheltenham this year as well.
David Porter, lead handler for Shaneshill, said the Irish horses have run hard this season, but they are in good shape to compete this Saturday.
“The travel is tough, but when an opportunity like this comes up we had to take a shot at it,” Porter said. “Nichols Canyon beat our best two-miler at home to start the season at Punchestown and ran well at Cheltenham and Aintree, but we think Shaneshill could be faster over hurdles. He finished second to (Ryanair World Hurdle winner) Thistlecrack at Aintree.”
Ruby Walsh, the 11-time Irish champion Jump jockey and the most successful jockey of all time at the Cheltenham Festival with 52 winners, is set to partner Nichols Canyon with the trainer’s nephew and multiple Grade One-winning Danny Mullins taking the ride on Shaneshill. Both horses are owned by Andrea and Graham Wylie.
Mullins, Ireland’s 11-time champion jump trainer, said today that Nichols Canyon and Shaneshill have arrived on the track and are acclimating well.
“It’s so far, so good with them,” he said. “It was quite a tough trip as it was 15 hours airtime and then they had to go into quarantine. They are now out of quarantine. I will hopefully be travelling over later in the week. We will see how conditions look on the track – hopefully the promised nice ground will be there.”
Mullins has yet to saddle a runner in the USA but is no stranger to international success, having won Japan’s very valuable Nakayama Grand Jump with Blackstairmountain in 2013. His late father, Paddy, landed a major prize in the USA in 1990 when Grabel won the US$750,000 Dueling Grounds International Hurdle in southern Kentucky.
Among the field of nine for the Bank of America-sponsored Calvin Houghland Iroquois Hurdle Stakes are 2014 Eclipse Award winner Demonstrative (Richard Valentine/Darren Nagle), a multiple Grade One winner including the 2014 and 2015 renewals of the Calvin Houghland Iroquois Hurdle; Italian Wedding (Jonathan Sheppard/Gerard Galligan), successful in the 2013 Grade One New York Turf Writers Cup; and the 12-year-old Pierrot Lunaire (Bruce Miller/Bernie Dalton), who landed the Calvin Houghland Iroquois Hurdle back in 2009.
Also set to go to post are Rawnaq (Cyril Murphy/Jack Doyle), a Grade Two winner in Ireland who made a good impression when winning the Grade Three Temple Gwathmey Handicap at Middleburg earlier this year; 2015 Caroline Cup runner-up Syros (Jack Fisher/Sean McDermott); and Scorpiancer (Jack Fisher/Connor Hankin), who was successful the US$100,000 Foxbrook Champion Hurdle in October.
Over the last 40 years, various American horses and riders have competed with credit in the United Kingdom, including the late George Sloan, who became the only rider from the United States to win the British Amateur Championship in the 1977/78 season. The legendary gelding Flatterer, a four-time consecutive Eclipse Award winner, was second in the 1987 Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, while Blythe Miller partnered Lonesome Glory to win at both Cheltenham and Iroquois in the 1990s.
More recently, the Calvin Houghland-owned Pierrot Lunaire came over from England to win the Iroquois Steeplechase in 2009, on his way to winning the Eclipse Award in 2012.
The Iroquois race is named for a horse that was the first American-bred horse to win the Derby at Epsom Downs, UK, in 1881 before retiring to stud at General William Harding’s Belle Meade Plantation in Nashville. Many of the horses who have won the Iroquois since 1941 descended from the race’s namesake.
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