Mullins describes Ferny Hollow death as ‘very, very sad’

Patrick Mullins has paid tribute to Ferny Hollow, the hugely-talented 2020 Champion Bumper winner who died as a result of injuries sustained in a fall at Cork on Sunday.

Mullins was riding the nine-year-old for his father, Willie, in the Grade Two Hilly Way Chase, won by stable companion Energumene.

It was only Ferny Hollow’s fifth run since that Cheltenham success, having overcome absences of 380 days and a mammoth 791 days before his victory in the Grade Three Newlands Chase last November.

Returning from a 287-day break at Cork, he had turned in a fine effort against top-class horses before coming down at the penultimate fence and could not be saved following his fall.

“I was probably just about to land into third, so we’d have finished second given what happened at the last with Banbridge which would have been a great run and he’s just come down at the back of the second-last,” Patrick Mullins told www.sportinglife.com.

“He got up and walked back into the stable yard, but unfortunately deteriorated there and he didn’t make it.

“It’s very, very sad. He didn’t really get to fulfil his potential.”