Cheltenham Festival: Sire Du Berlais, who entered the Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle at 33/1, turned back the hands of time to pull off a big shock.
Gordon Elliott’s 11-year-old, a two-time Pertemps Final champion at the Cheltenham Festival who won in 2019 and 2020, was considered a long shot in the day three renewal of the three-mile feature, which was highly open and competitive.
Home by the Lee and Flooring Porter, the defending champion and two of the more anticipated competitors, made a lot of the running, with the former needing to recover from an early mistake.
Dashel Drasher (40/1) by Jeremy Scott appeared to be difficult to pass as the race turned up the hill, giving him a long shot at being a surprise victor.
Favorite Teahupoo had run strongly overall but found it difficult to overtake Flooring Porter in the front when the going became tough under Davy Russell.
Sire Du Berlais, a stablemate of Teahupoo, beat Dashel Drasher by less than a length despite being grand old age of 11 years old.
Teahupoo and Flooring Porter won the race, with Dashel Drasher coming in second. However, after a stewards’ inquiry, it was determined that Drasher had interfered with Teahupoo, who took up the runners-up position.
Following a couple of obstacles, Elliott declared: “I knew he was in a nice groove. It’s a surprise, of course, but Sire Du Berlais can pull it off because he’s either first or last. To be fair to him, he continued going up the hill, and Mark (Walsh) gave him a fantastic ride.
“Winning the race is fantastic. It’s a terrific game, and it’s great to be here, even though we lost by a short head in a Grade One yesterday (with Gerri Colombe).
“We were unable to qualify him for the Pertemps Final. One day, the ground simply didn’t work out for us, and he probably didn’t appear to be all that crippled.
“He keeps to himself and doesn’t do anything particularly interesting, yet this is why he’s still active for someone his age.
“I predicted Teahupoo would triumph. He entered it and raced swiftly.”
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