Echoes In Rain

Echoes In Rain can be marked up at least a little on the bare form of the performance that she put up in finishing fourth in the Mares’ Hurdle on Tuesday. She was settled in behind early on by Patrick Mullins, which made sense, she is a free-going mare who likes to be held up and who was racing over two and a half miles for just the third time in her life. The first and second, the remarkable Honeysuckle and last year’s Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle winner Love Envoi, raced in second and first places respectively from early, and the winner’s finishing speed figure was 111.87%. Echoes In Rain travelled well down the hill, but it was always going to be difficult to pick up a mare with Honeysuckle’s class and pace into a quickening pace. To exacerbate the negative, she was forced wide around the home turn and she had to fight her corner for racing room. She did well to keep on as well as she did up the hill to take fourth place.

Conditions were not optimal for Willie Mullins’ mare. As well as the sedate pace, she is probably at her best over a shorter trip, and off the faster pace that a shorter trip generates, and, on her only previous run at Cheltenham, she finished fifth in last year’s Mares’ Hurdle. She should be happier now back over two miles and off a faster pace, and she goes well at Punchestown, she won the Grade 1 novices’ hurdle at the 2021 Festival.
Cheltenham, 14^th March 2023