‘My best 40 minutes for a long time’ – trainer Moore celebrates great treble with Welsh National win

Nassalam ploughed through the Chepstow mud to win the Welsh National and give trainer Gary Moore his third success in an incredible 40 minutes.

After conditional jockey Caoilin Quinn had won the Finale Juvenile Hurdle earlier on Salver for the Moore stable and Editeur du Gite had taken Kempton’s Desert Orchid Chase, the six-year-old Nassalam, who was backed into 9-2 joint-favouritism after the rain came, galloped home almost alone as treacherous conditions took their toll.

He was 34 lengths clear of Iron Bridge and previous winner Iwilldoit as just five mud-caked horses completed with the other 14 pulled up.

“Unbelievable,” said Moore. “It’s the best 40 minutes I’ve had for a long time. It’s the sort of stuff Willie Mullins does, or Gordon Elliott or Nicky Henderson, people like that. Nassalam is some horse to do what he did. Caoilin has ridden him handy all the way. The blinkers have galvanised him.”

When God made the world, he probably decreed that the it would always be wet and windy on on Welsh National day and, though it was good to soft in the morning, it turned heavy after a storm which, at one stage, closed both Severn bridges and, briefly, looked like it might cause a premature end to the racing. Without wipers, most jockeys resorted to four pairs of goggles for Wales’s biggest chase.

It is those conditions, however, when racing is borderline to continue, which suit Nassalam best according to owner John Stone. And after jumping to the front six out under Quinn, 22, an Irishman from Downpatrick, there was only ever going to be one winner.

The jockey is making the most of the opportunities while Jamie Moore, who was in the winner’s enclosure representing his father, is out of action with a broken neck.

In the race before the National, Quinn had won his first Graded race on Salver and the jockey, who came over from Ireland when he was 16 and is known as ‘Colin’ by Moore, had no hesitation in describing it as the best day of his life.

“Half way down the back for the last time he was half running away with me,” Quinn said. “But I was worried, it was a long way home. But in the straight I didn’t realise how far clear I was. But over that trip and in that ground, he’s a different class. Him and Salver – it just shows how much our horses like the mud. This [riding big winners] is where everyone wants to be. The yard’s had a great day and I’m very thankful for all the work they put in.”

Adding that he had had a quiet start to the season after breaking a collarbone in the summer, he said: “Two months ago things were going slowly but I’ve plenty of momentum going into the new year now.”

Jamie Moore, representing the stable, won it in 2015 on Mountainous and might have been riding Nassalam were he not still in a neck brace but he was full of praise for Quinn and Niall Houlihan, the stable’s other conditional, who rode Editeur Du Gite.

“‘Colin’ and ‘Houli’ are the best two conditionals in the country,” said the jockey, who can remove his brace in 10 days’ time. “He’ll get an entry for the Grand National now but proper soft ground is what he wants and he never got it last season. We thought, in those conditions, he was the class horse in the race. I told ‘Colin’ to keep filling him up and he’s done it to a tee.”