Conflated earned his shot at next year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup after a dominant victory in the Savills Chase at Leopardstown run in the absence of pre-race favourite A Plus Tard.
With the reigning Gold Cup champion a late withdrawal after sustaining a knock, Conflated secured a one-three for Michael O’Leary’s Gigginstown Stud and trainer Gordon Elliott when beating Kemboy by five lengths with Fury Road third.
Cut to 12-1 for the Gold Cup by William Hill, Conflated could be one of O’Leary’s last runners in the race he has won twice after the Ryanair boss suggested he would have no chasers left within a couple of years after cutting back his once vast string.
“We held on to some of the good older ones,” he said. “I’ve bought a couple of younger horses but much smaller numbers now.
“In another year or two I won’t have any chasers at all. Hopefully we will have two or three with Willie [Mullins], two or three with Gordon. My days as a racehorse owner are finished now.”
Conflated won the Irish Gold Cup in February but went for the Ryanair Chase in March in which he fell at the second last fence.
“We have two to go to Cheltenham with,” O’Leary told ITV Racing. “Conflated ran in the Ryanair last year. He’s entitled to take his chance in the Gold Cup and maybe we might take Fury Road to the Ryanair.”
Home By The Lee, surprise conqueror of Bob Olinger last month, confirmed himself a rising star of the staying hurdle division by landing the Christmas Hurdle for Joseph O’Brien.
The Henry de Bromhead-trained Bob Olinger, who started 7-4 favourite in the race which remembered Jack de Bromhead, the trainer’s 13-year-old son who tragically died in a pony racing accident in September, could finish only fifth.
