'This has made our year - Cheltenham better watch out tonight' - Whacker Clan set for big party after dream winner

Cheltenham was warned to brace itself for a raucous Irish party thrown by the Foyles and Halleys as their family favourite Whacker Clan delivered a dream winner at the track on Saturday.

The seven-year-old, who is owned by a 39-strong syndicate, was bought by John Halley and 12 members of the family made the trip from County Waterford to witness his crowning moment.

Darragh O’Keeffe executed a brilliant ride front the front when landing the Grand Annual aboard Maskada here in March and set out positively in a stiff 3m1f handicap chase test on the Henry de Bromhead-trained runner, who sauntered over the Cotswold hills and jumped swiftly as one by one his rivals toiled.

The strongly backed 4-1 favourite Twig served up the only challenge in the straight but the resilient Irish raider tussled ahead as they hit the line to score by three lengths.

Euphoric family member Louise Foyle introduced herself as the syndicate’s “biggest lunatic willing to talk” in the aftermath and described the victory as the biggest for her family. The remainder of the owners not in attendance cheered on from the family hotel and bar The Strand Inn.

Foyle said: “I’d say Cheltenham better watch out, we’ll be having a few whiskey sours tonight.

“It’s unbelievable. We’ve been coming here for years but to come here with our own family horse, it’s amazing. There's 12 of us here but there’s 39 in the family with uncles and aunts and grandchildren. We all love racing and a party so this has made our year. We couldn’t be happier.

“Our family is from Tramore and Henry is our local trainer and a good family friend - we wouldn’t send the horse to anyone else. He ran and won at Tramore but it wasn’t a super hot race so we didn’t have our hopes super high but I think people are looking down, giving us a bit of hope and egging him on.”

Whacker Clan: impressed from the frontCredit: John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)

The Kim Muir at the 2024 Cheltenham Festival was touted as a potential future target by De Bromhead, who was completing a double after Dancing On My Own struck in the 2m handicap chase.

Foyle added: "That’s the dream, we’ll see what Henry says. He’s the boss and we’ll go with his word."

Whacker Clan was recording a fourth win under rules, defying a 5lb rise for his Tramore victory in August. 

De Bromhead, who also sent out fourth-place finisher Amirite, said: "He’s just progressing. He’s a hardy fella and it’s great he’s shown form around here, there’s a chance he could get into a Kim Muir or something in time. 

"He’s been busy so we’ll probably back off him soon. I always thought he wanted better ground but he handled that fairly well."

Only five of the 13 starters finished, with 33-1 shot Wayfinder outrunning his odds in third and The Wolf finishing last of the finishers for Olly Murphy.

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