'She wasn't just a little filly off the Flat' - Ted Durcan relishing association with star hurdler Wodhooh

A longstanding allegiance to Sir Michael Stoute led Ted Durcan to what has become one of his most unexpected pleasures as a bloodstock agent in discovering a live Cheltenham Festival candidate.

The Classic-winning jockey has largely positioned his bloodstock agency towards the more familiar context of Flat racing, both for Europe and his old home-from-home in the Gulf.

A chance request, however, to find a jumper for Ian Murphy and his Sundowners Partnership has demonstrated Durcan's eye for a horse of any kind. 

Wodhooh, bought out of Stoute's stable for 50,000gns at the last Tattersalls July Sale, has already earned more than that sum for the Gordon Elliott yard in winning five times over hurdles, two of which were at Listed level, to make her a viable JCB Triumph Hurdle contender. 

She was most recently seen coasting more than six lengths clear in the SBK Fillies' Juvenile Hurdle at Doncaster.

"Ian approached me during the spring or early summer,  I didn't know him well at all but Fran Berry is a friend of his and the remit was he was basically looking for a fun horse for him and some golfing friends, their wives, that was it," explains Durcan. 

"He mentioned how much they might have to spend and I said they might be better off getting a few more friends in, up the ante a bit and it would be easier.

"He gave me free rein and I never went out actively looking, I just thought I'd wait until something kind of landed in our laps that would suit."

Durcan was familiar with Wodhooh, an Al Shaqab homebred who was a maiden in four starts, as he is a trusted assistant and work-rider of the decorated Newmarket trainer Stoute.

"She wasn't going to kind of fulfil what her owners would be expecting on the Flat so, totally understandably, they decided to sell her," he says. 

"There wasn't anything sinister in it at all. She's a very straightforward, easy filly. Michael knew he would be able to win with her on the Flat but the owners would be interested in high-end Flat horses. I knew her history and thought she'd fit the brief for them absolutely perfectly."

The 50-year-old does admit that Wodhooh's conversion has been particularly spectacular since she was given the verdict by the stewards in a three-year-olds' hurdle at Listowel in September.

Ted Durcan: "She has gone and exceeded what we'd hoped for"Credit: Laura Green

Now a winner on all kinds of ground, she may yet have potential to return to the Flat off a mark of just 71 and, as a daughter of the late Le Havre whose granddam was a sister of the Sangster family's Derby and Guineas-placed Colonel Collins and Doncaster Trophy winner Commander Collins, she ought to have considerable breeding potential too.

Durcan says: "Did I expect her to go on the way she has? In all honestly, maybe not. I'd hoped she would, and the switch to hurdles has been the making of her. She's got the right attitude and has gone and exceeded what we'd hoped for. 

"She's a big scopey lady, by Le Havre out of a Dubawi mare, and that was the other angle for me. She wasn't just a little filly off the Flat, I thought whatever happens she had to improve with age and strengthen up a bit. 

"It's added up lovely and she's been placed ever so well by Gordon. He was mindful to inch along with her and then when he's upped the ante he's had her against her own sex, first in a Listed race at Newbury in December and then at Doncaster."

Durcan reports that Murphy managed to persuade around ten pals to come in with him on Wodhooh and has enjoyed the diversion himself. At a Tattersalls February Sale he found Perseus Way, who finished second in last year's Grade 2 Adonis Juvenile Hurdle and ran in the Fred Winter, but there is every chance this filly could go even higher.  

"She was bought for some people to go out and have some fun and they're having an absolute blast," says Durcan. "Owning horses like that, it's so much more fun if you're sharing it out among friends isn't it, it makes the winning even better and the losing a lot more easy.

"She's already won more than £69,000, but it's not really the monetary aspect. It's just a nice story for everyone that worked out really well."  

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