Verdana Blue (Getaway) winning a bumper at Killarney

8-length win for Getaway mare

The Nicky Henderson-trained Verdana Blue (5m Getaway-Blue Gallery, by Bluebird) looked a high-class prospect as she strolled away with a Taunton novices’ hurdle on Tuesday. A bumper winner in Ireland (pictured), she had easily won a similar event at Hereford in January and looked even classier as she took this latest event by eight lengths under Jeremiah McGrath. Bred by her former trainer Edmond Kent, she now carries the colours of the Parker family’s Crimbourne Stud after selling for £65,000 at Cheltenham in November.

“Verdana Blue is a smart mare who is improving all the time. I suspect she will be upped in grade now and something like the mares' final might come into it,” McGrath told the Racing Post.