Pedigree

                                                               Salse
                                        Classic Cliché
                                                               Pato
Yo La Tengo (IRE)
2007 bay/brown gelding
                                                                Strong Gale
                                         Strong Edition
                                                                My Maizey

The family

This gelding is a half brother to a useful, black type performer of JP MacManus' called Mick the Tooth. Trained in Ireland by John Barry to win a point-to-point and then a hurdle, he also finished 3rd in the listed Horse & Jockey Hurdle at Thurles.
The dam, Strong Edition, was placed in no less that 5 bumpers in the late '90s. Mick the Tooth is her only winner - fingers crossed that our gelding can add to that tally.
Irish breeder Mick Berry has bred several winners from this family, including four from the grand dam of this gelding - My Maizey. Unraced, but has bred 4 winners from 6 of her foals to race. That useful race mare Bambootcha was the best of those winning 3 times in all, importantly with 2 Graded hurdle victories to her credit.

About the sire

Classic Cliché (bay horse, 1992) raced for 4 seasons from 2yr to 5yr, and won 6 (including 5 stakes) races all told, at least one in each season from a total of 16 runs.
Top class, he was crowned Champion 3yr old stayer in Europe in 1995. Trained by Henry Cecil as a juvenile, he moved to Godolphin as a 3yr old and raced the rest of his career there, winning the St Leger, and the Ascot Gold Cup as a 4yr old. He was retired to stud in 1998, where he is making his name as a dual purpose stallion.
Classic Cliché has sired over 60 individual winners (several at least useful) of over 150 races over jumps to date, and with many more stock to come this number will rise sharply over the next couple of seasons.

Form Summary

August 2011, and Donald & Al Duncan found themselves, catalogues in hand, propped up against the pre-sales ring at Tattersalls Ireland NH Sale. A huge sale, but both were struck by an athletic son of Classic Cliché as he was paraded for 15 minutes of so before his slot in the ring. Well, a closer inspection was requested and the unbroken gelding was very impressive, floating over the ground as he was trotted in front of the pair.
"We'll see him sold then" was the guarded response from our trainer.
As the gelding was paraded round the sales arena, there didn't seem to be much action from 'the bidders' with the price stalling around €1,200. It was now or never, and Al took the plunge and the auctioneer quickly tapped the hammer at €1,300.
A bargain, surely? Well that was the opinion of breeder and consigner Mick Berry when Donald and Al visited the gelding in his box shortly afterwards.
But that wasn't the end of the activity as shortly afterward Al received a call from a voice tinged with Irish Brogue - 'will ye take a profit?' Phew - quite a exhilarating couple of hours!

Anyway, this gelding had been in training for over a year, when making his bumper debut at Carlisle in December of 2012. But he was all wrong during the race, and was diagnosed with a pelvic injury soon after. Months of box rest followed by a summer at grass, the gelding returned to Dodlands in September.
We might just skip a bumper run, and go straight down the novice hurdle route - with fingers crossed that he stays sound.

Season		win	2nd	3rd	4th	other
2012-13	NH Flat					1
2013-14	hurdles

Current Season Form