By Andrew Atkinson
Honeysuckle was amongst the 10-horse bumper 33,517 fromthehorsesmouth.info winning accumulator on Saturday, when landing the Chanelle Pharma Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown.
The victory put Honeysuckle alongside Epatante at 9-4 in the Cheltenham Festival Champion Hurdle in March.
“You’d have to feel that we’d be leaning towards the Champion Hurdle,” said trainer Henry De Bromhead.
“On ratings it would have been her best performance – she’s put in a few real good ones – but that has to be up there,” said De Bromhead.
Winning jockey Rachael Blackmore said: “She was just deadly – Henry has just done an unbelievable job with her. She was a lot sharper, was class, and has plenty of pace. You do whatever you want with her now.
“It’s every jockey’s dream – when you can just sit against them and they are jumping from hurdle to hurdle.”
De Bromhead added: “She was brilliant – it was what we hoped she’d do and Rachael was brilliant – just class.
“It’s lovely the way she picked up, you could see the speed and she jumped great. I’m very lucky to have Rachael – just brilliant to have on the team.”
The fromthehorsesmouth.info 33,517 ten-horse winning accumulator included: Gaillard Du Mesnil (13-8), Bangkok (8-13), Energumene (5-6), Symbolic Power (15-8), Classy Dame (11-4), Honeysuckle (10-11), Longsider (2-1), Deise Aba (17-2), Defined (5-2) and Kilcruit (11-10).
