Honeysuckle: the great mare in numbers

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Honeysuckle returns after 219 days away in the Bar One Racing Hatton’s Grace Hurdle on Sunday as the great mare bids to become the first-ever four-time winner of the big race at Fairyhouse.

Trainer Henry de Bromhead says all has gone well with the eight-year-old’s preparations for the €120,000 contest in what is set to be her final year in training and, if Honeysuckle was to win all four starts this term, she would surpass the winning-streak record of 19 set in recent years by Altior and sign off with a perfect 20 wins from 20 starts.

The layers have Honeysuckle no bigger than 1-3 to make the perfect start to her fifth campaign under Rules this weekend, and in the process improve upon some quite remarkable statistics...

The remarkable Honeysuckle has won 16 races over jumps under Rules, one of 13 Grade One winners since 2003 to have won such a haul of races. This is lofty company indeed and features Hurricane Fly, Kauto Star, Big Buck’s, Frodon, Faugheen, Un De Sceaux, Altior, Sprinter Sacre, Sizing Europe, Beef Or Salmon, Solerina, Moscow Flyer and Edredon Bleu.

Honeysuckle has won 12 Grade One races - only Hurricane Fly (22) and Kauto Star (16) have more Grade One triumphs since 2003.

Honeysuckle has beaten a total of 109 runners in her 16 races so far, with her cumulative winning margin adding up to 88 lengths – an average of 5.5 lengths per race. Her biggest margin of victory was by 12 lengths on debut – incidentally, over the same course and distance as the Bar One Racing Hatton’s Grace Hurdle at Fairyhouse.

Honeysuckle has won on good ground and every type of going down to heavy, while she has beaten a total of 23 previous or future Grade One winners in her career so far: Black Tears, Bacardys, Apple’s Jade, Killultagh Vic, Penhill, Petit Mouchoir, Supasundae, Aramon, Sharjah, Benie Des Dieux, Roksana, Stormy Ireland, Beacon Edge, Abacadabras, Saldier, Epatante, Not So Sleepy, Silver Streak, Skyace, Latest Exhibition, Echoes In Rain, Adagio and Appreciate It.

Honeysuckle has started as favourite for every single one of he races bar one – when triumphant over 4/6F Benie Des Dieux in the 2020 Mares’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. That was the great mare’s first assignment out of Ireland and she has won on all three starts at the Cheltenham Festival.

In her Rules career to date, Honeysuckle has raced over 36 miles - plus an additional furlong! – while she has run for a total time lasting 71 minutes and 38.69 seconds. It would take 21m36s to travel that distance in a car at 100mph.

Honeysuckle has jumped 149 hurdles on the track and, provided she runs in her usual four races this term – the Hatton’s Grace, Irish Champion Hurdle, Champion Hurdle and Punchestown Champion Hurdle – she will have jumped 183 hurdles by the season’s end.

Consignor Mark O’Hare paid €9,500 for Honeysuckle as a three-year-old at the 2017 Derby Sale in what is fair to say a more than shrewd piece of business. The Northern Irishman won the National Hunt Chase aboard 40-1 chance Another Rum at the 2005 Cheltenham Festival and notably rode Honeysuckle to her first career success – in April 2018 when beating the now 154-rated Annie Mc by a whopping 15 lengths in a point at Dromahane.

That eye-popping success certainly helped raise the sell-on price to €110,000 the following year when Peter Maloney of Rathmore Stud bought Honeysuckle on behalf of owner Kenny Alexander, who committed to buying Honeysuckle after seeing her at the Goffs Punchestown Sale during an afternoon at the races in which he'd enjoyed a few beers. The mare has gone on to win £1.3m in prize money.