Leading point-to-pointer Wagner is leaving Max Comley’s Gloucestershire stable and heading to the USA.
The nine-year-old (pictured above under James King) has won four races this season and is one of three horses at the head of the Connolly’s RED MILLS leading horse table – alongside stablemate Jay Bee Whiskey and the Nicki Sheppard-trained Grace A Vous Enki – but his American owner Charlie Noell has an ambition for Wagner on the other side of the Atlantic. He is being sent to Blythe Miller to be prepared for an attempt on the famous Maryland Hunt Cup, a race over four miles and 22 timber fences.
Speaking at Larkhill on Sunday, Comley said: “Charlie mentioned this plan at the end of last season, but in a passing comment and I didn’t think much of it. Then after Wagner won at Friars Haugh [earlier this month] he said ‘I think we’d better find a boat for him’. The plan is for him to leave us on Tuesday, spend a week in quarantine and then fly out. He’ll run in a couple of races and then tackle the Maryland Hunt Cup at the end of April. Charlie has been looking for a horse to win the race for years.
“The horse has been a superstar for us. James [King] heard he was for sale so we bought him for Charlie to have a runner in the Aintree Foxhunters’ Chase, then he had a summer off and he’s come back better than ever. We have placed him to win races and avoid penalties – we’ve had a lot of fun with him.”
Max Comley: "The horse has been a superstar for us"
American jump racing is suited to horses who handle quick ground, and Comley said Wagner has shown he can handle such conditions. “He won on rattling ground at Higham last year and bounced off it nicely, but he’s also won on heavy ground so he’s a really versatile horse,” said Comley. “He would have been the perfect horse for targeting the champion point-to-pointer title because we could have run him to the end of the season, but it’s not to be.”
The trainer did not rule Jay Bee Whiskey out of the Leading Horse title race, although he said the intermediate final at Cheltenham’s hunters’ chase meeting was the key target for the Kevin Crawford-owned nine-year-old. He also hopes Wagner will return to Britain, but for a different challenge, saying: “It’s well known I’m planning to get a licence and I’m hoping he will come back to me next season to run in handicaps off a nice mark.”
First run in 1894 and limited to amateur riders the Maryland Hunt Cup has been won by two horses, Jay Trump and Ben Nevis, who subsequently went on to victory in Aintree’s Grand National, and by a handful of women riders, including Miller. The upright timber fences provide a significant challenge, with the third fence at 4ft 6ins and 16th fence at 4ft 10ins being among the most demanding.
Wagner will not be the first point-to-pointer to tackle the race. Vintage Vinnie won a maiden point-to-point at Lingstown in Co Wexford as a five-year-old and went on to become a useful chaser for Rebecca Curtis before being sold to race in the USA. He won the big race in 2021 and 2022.
Vintage Vinnie (Teddy Davies) winning the Maryland Hunt Cup in 2022