Any Second Now

Any Second Now stayed on well to win the Grade 2 Moscow Flyer Hurdle at Punchestown on Saturday.

JP McManus’ horse may have been helped by the fact that Crack Mome and Runfordave both made mistakes at the final flight as the three of them jumped it upsides, but he may have won anyway.

The Ted Walsh-trained gelding is now two for two, he is unbeaten in two runs over hurdles. He sprang a 66/1 shock when he won his maiden hurdle on his racecourse debut at Navan last month, and he is entitled to take a high rank now among the novice hurdling ranks.

Crack Mome was highly regarded going into this, he was sent off the 4/11 favourite on the back of an easy win on his hurdling bow at Clonmel last month, and it may not be insignificant that Willie Mullins won this race with Mikael D’Haguenet, Vautour, Douvan and Min at the same stages of their respective careers. Also, Any Second Now’s winning time was good, just 0.08secs/furlong slower than Racing Post par and the fastest comparative time on the day by miles. (He was 11.5secs faster than the maiden hurdle winner.)

A step up in trip could suit Any Second Now. He does have two-mile pace, and this was a tight two miles, and he is progressive anyway, but a slight step up could bring about even further improvement. It just might help him travel a little better through his race. He should be a Cheltenham horse now, and he could be more a Neptune Hurdle horse than a Supreme Novices’ Hurdle horse.

14^th January 2017