Home By The Lee’s perseverance pays off at fifth time of asking in Stayers’ Hurdle

“Never give up, that’s the moral of the story,” Sean O’Driscoll, owner-breeder, said. “He’s won 12 races [more than any other horse O’Brien has trained] and been placed five times. My son John has never seen him win. He told me a couple of weeks ago he couldn’t come but a couple of days ago he said he could make it! I said ‘no, you’d better stay away!’ So, John, this is for you.”

He added: “He lost his way chasing. Joseph rang me one day and said, ‘I think maybe you should send him to another yard, they can freshen him up’. I said, ‘Are you politely telling me that I should take him away from the yard?’ To which he replied, ‘No, I’m not’. So I said, ‘Well, he’s not going anywhere’. Joseph is an amazing trainer.”

Keep trying might also be something of a motto for Jonbon, Nicky Henderson’s chaser who has never been out of the first two in 28 starts, one of the most remarkable records in the game. He kept that record intact in the Ryanair Chase and probably set one for finishing second for a fourth time at the meeting but, like Home By The Lee, he will also need to go a fifth time if he is to win one.

Ultimately, yesterday, he had no answers for Henry de Bromhead’s Heart Wood, runner-up to Fact To File in the race last year but, with the ante-post favourite taken out because of the ground, a good 10-length winner this time.