Blast From The Past: Premier Kelso Novices' Hurdle

Mephisto won only a three-runner Ayr novice hurdle from eight subsequent starts after winning his second Grade 2 over timber in the 2005 Premier Kelso Novices' Hurdle, but that shouldn’t detract from his performance at Kelso that day, when he showed both smart form and a very willing attitude to hold off his chief market rival Faasel.

Mephisto had won five of his 10 starts on the Flat for Luca Cumani before being bought by the Wylies for 220,000 guineas at the Newmarket Autumn Sales, where J. P. McManus was the underbidder. After building on his hurdling debut in a Grade 2 at Cheltenham to win a similar race at Haydock most impressively, Mephisto was odds-on to beat the unbeaten hurdler Faasel and and seven others at Kelso.

Faasel himself had been purchased for 230,000 guineas off the Flat—they were two of the most expensive jumpers ever be to trained in the North—and he was sent off at 6/4 after three wins, including two at Kelso, with Habitual Dancer at 12/1 and the rest no shorter than 40/1. In the end Faasel pushed Mephisto close—to within a head—after a thrilling tussle up the run-in, but it was not enough to emerge victorious. The pair were 25 lengths clear of the third-placed Habitual Dancer.

Mephisto, who looked well before the race and was ridden by his third different rider over hurdles (Warren Marston), had no trouble with the drop to two and a quarter miles as he both travelled and jumped well until settling down to fight it out after the last. He found plenty under pressure to shade it close home and play a large part in a race that will still be in the memory of many that watched it first time around. The going at Kelso was heavy, but Mephisto’s Flat form suggested that testing conditions were in no way vital to him, and his final success at Ayr was achieved on good ground.

Mephisto ran to a Timeform performance rating of 149 in the Premier Kelso Hurdle—which hasn’t been matched in the race since—and, in form terms, he looked just about the pick of the novice hurdlers owned by Andrea and Graham Wylie going into the 2005 Cheltenham Festival. He stayed at home, however, whilst the same connections’ Arcalis and No Refuge landed the Supreme and the race now known as the Neptune, respectively. Mephisto did run at Aintree, but he was too free to show his true form and faded into third behind Turpin Green and My Way de Solzen in the Mersey. Unfortunately, he must have been a horse that developed problems as he barely ran to a rating after 2005, including when tried over fences.