Impressive maiden point-to-point winner Kyntara made an eye-catching start to his career under Rules when racing to victory at Warwick yesterday.
Now a five-year-old and trained by Kim Bailey, Kyntara was in the Shropshire stable of Mel Rowley when successful on his debut in October over three miles at Bishop’s Court near Ottery St Mary in Devon. Ridden by Alex Edwards, he won by eight lengths and the same in a field of 14.
In that contest he ran for a syndicate called The Mixed Up Partners which included Lady Dulverton, who had been bought the horse as a three-year-old by bloodstock agent David Minton. Yesterday, making his debut for Bailey’s stable in Lady Dulverton’s colours, Kyntara found the drop back to two miles absolutely no problem when scoring by 21 lengths and six and a half lengths from horses trained by Dan Skelton and Harry Fry. Nine ran and Kyntara, who was ridden by former point-to-point rider David Bass, started at 4/1.
The winner was bred by trainer Henry Daly, who saddled Kyntara’s dam Speed Bonnie Boat to win a hurdle race. Her dam, Sail By The Stars, won ten races over jumps and came from the family of Dublin Flyer, a high-class chaser for Daly’s mentor Tim Forster.
Writing on his daily blog, Bailey said: “Henry was on the phone pretty quickly after the race to say well done and remarked that he had a two-year-old half-brother for sale.”
Bailey added that Daly’s brother Dermot, who is a director at Warwick, was unaware of the family connection to the winner, “but at least said well done!”. Dermot’s son George is finding a place on the British point-to-point circuit, and was narrowly denied a first winner when the Julie Mansell-trained Shamilan was beaten a short-head at Chaddesley Corbett in December.
Other ex-British pointers who ran well on the Warwick card included Sky Pirate, who was eased down when finishing runner-up to Allmankind in the Gr.2 Kingmaker Novices’ Chase – Sky Pirate was trained by Sophie Lacey to win at Larkhill before being sold into Jonjo O’Neill’s stable – and Song Of The Hunter, a winner at Buckfastleigh for trainer Tom Malone before joining Gail Haywood. Subsequently moved again to Johnny Farrelly’s stable, Song Of The Hunter finished second at Warwick in a handicap hurdle.