Eklat De Rire provided Rachael Blackmore with her first winner since returning from injury after the son of Saddex recorded a comfortable success in the BetVictor MW Hickey Memorial Chase at Wexford.
It may be asking a fair bit for Eklat De Rire to emulate his Henry de Bromhead-trained stablemate Minello Indo – who took the corresponding event 12 months ago before going on to win the Gold Cup at Cheltenham – but he still confirmed himself a very promising type.
Having just his sixth start under Rules in this Listed event, the seven-year-old was a Grade Three winner as a novice but had not been seen since unseating Blackmore at the Cheltenham Festival.
Eklat De Rire put in some prodigious leaps on the way round, but the same could not be said of runner-up Conflated.
Blackmore decided they were not going fast enough on the second circuit and took up the running, extending her advantage turning into the straight.
While getting tired after the last, Eklat De Rire still won by four and a half lengths to justify his position as the 10-11 market leader.
Eklat De Rire gets his chasing career back on track in the @BetVictor M.W. Hickey Memorial Chase!
— Wexford Racecourse (@WexfordRacecour) October 25, 2021
A promising lightly-raced horse who could have a good year for Rachel Blackmore and @HenrydeBromhead 🏇 pic.twitter.com/NofiS1jIHV
"It's great to be back and it’s lovely to ride a winner on that horse," said Blackmore.
"He is a really, really nice horse – and I think he is going to have a big future.
"I was disappointed with myself after what happened with him in Cheltenham, so it was nice to get him back on track today."
De Bromhead said: "I’m happy with that, he is a grand horse. We were a bit unlucky at Cheltenham – how he would have fared, who knows.
"I’m delighted for Peter Davies (owner). He is a great supporter of ours, and it’s nice to win this race. Today was to get him started and try to get him some confidence back.
"We have entered him in the race at Newbury, the Ladbrokes Trophy – we just entered him in that this morning. He could possibly go for that, I’m not sure.
"We will take it one day at a time with him. Rachael said he was pretty straight today and we had him ready for it."
