Libberty Hunter proves patience pays off

Evan Williams is excited to see how far Libberty Hunter can climb the chasing ladder after making a successful start to his campaign at Cheltenham.

A dual winner as a novice over fences last season, including a New Year’s Day verdict at Cheltenham, the eight-year-old went on to finish second in the Grand Annual at the Festival before rounding off his season with a third-place finish in a Grade One contest at Aintree.

Following a dry autumn, Libberty Hunter (7-2) was making a belated comeback in the BetMGM Handicap Chase and cruised into the slipstream of the pacesetting 5-2 joint-favourite Issar D’Airy halfway up the home straight.

Once given his head, the Williams runner soon sealed the deal, finishing off strongly without being asked for maximum effort and passing the post with four lengths in hand.

Master Chewy, the other joint-favourite, finished third.

Williams said: “We’re delighted. We’ve been waiting to run for a few weeks and you’re thinking ‘Jesus, is the rain ever going to come’! We had to start to day and it was nice he’s done it the way he did.

“He travelled nicely and jumped well. He’s obviously improved from last season, which is always nice to see with a second season chaser. It was just a good starting point.

“We’ve been very slow to get going this season. I’m a bit of an old dinosaur I’m afraid and I’ve got a lot of horses that want proper winter ground.

“I’ve learnt over the years that going a week too early is a lot worse than going a week too late and that bit of rain last night made the ground a little bit more like what we wanted.

“He’s not a young horse, but he hasn’t got a lot of miles on the clock. Some of them progress and some don’t, but this fellow looks like he’s getting stronger.”

Whether Libberty Hunter sticks to major handicaps or tests the water at graded level later in the season remains to be seen, with Williams in no rush to firm up future plans.

He added: “It’ll be very interesting to see what happens really – he’s won of 144 today.

“Our season hasn’t panned out as I would have liked, not just with this horse but a lot of my horses. I’m so far behind getting started and then the season takes a different path.

“It all depends how they come out, what happens with the weather and we’ll go from there.

“I can’t believe it’s nearly Christmas! I think we’ve just got to keep things fluid.”