Ivan Du Berry

Toulouse - 17th February 2026

Whilst I am still waiting for the 3-year-old season to start, there have been a couple of interesting 4-year-olds make winning debuts over hurdles this week and the latest was Ivan du Berry, who made a winning start at Toulouse on Tuesday. Here are my race notes;

Prix Fineau

4YO Hurdle - 3,500m - €11,040

Some caution will definitely be needed with this meeting at Toulouse. The ground was officially described as Very Heavy with a 5,4 reading on the penetrometer. The stalls couldn’t be used on the turf and the meeting was eventually abandoned after only 4 of the scheduled 8 races were run. For that reason, I have largely ignored the overall time figures and focussed on a comparison of the 2 hurdle race winners in the table above. Rome Antique won the Prix de Grazac for Etienne D’Andigne by 15 lengths. He came into that race with some decent form at Auteuil and was probably better than his rating of 54.5 kilos might have suggested. Their overall times are very similar, but the 2 races were run in very different fashion.

Rome Antique was prominent throughout and was largely untroubled in front. Once his main rival slipped up after jumping the 2nd last, Angelo Zuliani had the race won. By contrast, Ivan Du Berry had a stronger early pace to chase when Mimosa des Sources went 20 lengths clear. Although the leader was clear when he stopped at halfway, the overall time was around 4s slower than the 5YOs and as a result, Ivan du Berry was around 25 lengths behind Rome Antique as they came down the back straight. Given the difference between them, the fact that the majority of that time was made up after jumping the 3rd from home, we can upgrade this performance on the clock from Ivan du Berry, especially on his debut.

His jumping will need to improve. This was his racecourse debut and the seemingly bottomless ground would not have worked in his favour, but there were some errors, particularly when he tried to meet the hurdles on a stride. Here are my jumping notes; “Steadied first, good 2nd and 3rd, slightly big over 6th, steadied 7th, good jump over 9th to lead, steadied 10th, slowed into 11th with extra stride, wrong stride and landed on all-fours 13th, leaned slightly right at last but jumped clear”. This was his first day at school and he was travelling faster than any other horse on the card when making those errors, but there is at least some work for improvement.

He is an Ivanhowe gelding and a half-brother to Risk Belle (Willie Mullins). His Dam was a 7 time winner over obstacles in France, including the Listed Grand Steeple Chase de Lyon and is herself a half-sister to Kopek des Bordes and Darling des Bordes. Ivan du Berry has a very solid National Hunt pedigree and whilst the fact he has won a race in February and therefore won’t be a novice for next season may put some buyers off, the fact that he has so much scope to improve over fences will surely mean that he will have his suitors.