Gordon Elliott watches intently as the horses make their way across in front of the tress in the distance and turn to their left.
The stillness of the Cullentra morning enhanced by the unmistakeable sound of hoof on ground, getting louder as the horses make their way up the hill towards you. One by one. Gerri Colombe and Conflated and Teahupoo and Irish Point.
“We don’t do that much on a Monday,” says the trainer. “Just stretch their legs.”
Exciting times at Cullentra these days as the new National Hunt season stretches out before you all the way to the horizon.
The season is not new though. Not really. Not if you’re starting on the day after the Punchestown Festival finishes, when the dials all go back to zero and start clicking again. Gordon Elliott has already bagged a Galway Plate and a Down Royal Champion Chase and a Munster National and a Troytown Chase. Add a Lartigue Hurdle and a Monksfield Hurdle and a For Auction Hurdle and a Florida Pearl Chase if you want, and 11 more winners in Britain and three more winners in America.
He says that his target at the start of every season is to train a hundred winners: he has already smashed through that target, and we are still only in November.
Down Royal was phenomenal. You expect that Gordon Elliott will have winners at the big Down Royal meeting in early November, but this year was remarkable, even by the standards that he has set for himself. There are 14 races at the meeting, seven on Friday and seven more on Saturday, and Gordon Elliott trained 11 of the winners.

One of those winners was Gerri Colombe.
“The thing about Gerri Colombe,” says the trainer, “is he has this will to win, and that’s a great attribute to have."
The Robcour gelding showed it at Down Royal too. It didn’t look likely when he had to switch inside his stable companion Conflated, and when he landed flat-footed over the last, but then that will to win kicked in, and he clawed back Envoi Allen’s lead and got up to win by a neck. In so doing, as well as bagging one of the major early-season prizes, he consolidated his position as second favourite behind the title-holder Galopin Des Champs in the Cheltenham Gold Cup ante post market.
“He’ll come on an awful lot for his Down Royal run. He’s only back cantering since the middle of September, Jack said he had a proper blow, and there’s loads of improvement in him. He’ll be in the Savills Chase, if the ground is safe he’ll go there. If not, he could go to Cheltenham at the end of January. He doesn’t mind nice ground, but you just wouldn’t want to be chancing him at that time of the year."
The anticipation at Cullentra is palpable these days. A mix of established stars and rising talent bursting with potential.
They don’t make them much more established than Sire Du Berlais. He was remarkable last spring. His victory in the Stayers’ Hurdle at Cheltenham was testament to his ability and his enthusiasm for racing, and the manner in which his keenness for competition has been nurtured and maintained by Elliott and his team.
JP McManus’ horse was 11 in March when he won the Stayers’ Hurdle. He was the first horse aged older than nine to win the Stayers’ Hurdle in 36 years, and only the second since 1927. Then he went to Aintree and won the Liverpool Hurdle as well.
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Sire Du Berlais is extraordinary though, because even the proven performers at Cullentra are not old. Ash Tree Meadow is seven. Coko Beach is eight. Teahupoo is six.
“Teahupoo is very well. He’ll start off in the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle, and maybe then go to Leopardstown at Christmas. If he improved 5lb from last year, he has to be right in the mix with the best staying hurdlers.”
And the youngsters are bursting with potential. Ask Gordon Elliott if he has ever had a more exciting bunch of youngsters, and he struggles to answer in the negative.
Brighterdaysahead was two for two in bumpers last season, and is now two for two over hurdles this term. Unbeaten in four runs in her life, there is no knowing how high she could go.
Firefox was impressive in winning his bumper at Down Royal, his third bumper win, and will go back over hurdles now. Down Memory Lane won his only point-to-point and his only bumper, and has won his only hurdle race to date, at Down Royal, impressively. He holds an entry in the Royal Bond Hurdle at Fairyhouse, and that is where we might see him again now.
Found A Fifty was impressive in winning his beginners’ chase, and could go for the Drinmore at Fairyhouse. American Mike is also in the Drinmore. The 2022 Champion Bumper runner-up put an unremarkable novice hurdling campaign behind him when he ran out an impressive winner of his beginners’ chase at Navan. Imagine was also impressive in winning his beginners’ chase at Fairyhouse, and is a short price for the Grade 2 Craddockstown Chase at Punchestown today.

Croke Park is an exciting staying novice hurdler, and What’s Up Darling battled back well to win the For Auction Hurdle. There is a pool of young equine talent here that runs deep. Favori De Champdou was an impressive winner of the Florida Pearl Chase at Punchestown on Saturday, and he could take a high rank among the leading staying novice chasers this season. Mighty Bandit ran out an impressive winner of the three-year-olds’ maiden hurdle at Punchestown on his racecourse debut, and he could morph into one of the leading juvenile hurdlers this season.
The pool of human talent runs deep too.
There is a strong sense of Team at Gordon Elliott’s, and the jockeys are there. Jack Kennedy is number one, that’s undisputed, and after Jack, the jockeys fit in. Danny Gilligan won the Troytown Chase on Coko Beach, Sam Ewing won the For Auction Hurdle on What’s Up Darling, Jordan Gainford won the Jack Duggan Memorial Hurdle on Ringdufferin, Ricky Doyle won the Munster National on Gevrey, Carl Millar won a listed handicap hurdle at Down Royal on Magic Tricks.
The Cullentra team could go far this season.
They could go all the way to the horizon.
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