by Myra Lewyn

Alnoff Stable's Be Certain launched his winning bid from second with two fences remaining and wore down heavy favorite and more experienced stablemate Planets Aligned for a head victory the $75,000 BNY Mellon National Hunt Cup on Saturday at the Radnor Hunt Races in Malvern, Pennsylvania.

The 2 3/8-mile race, considered a Grade 2 event by the National Steeplechase Association, is the final leg of steeplechasing’s Triple Crown for novice jumpers.

Planet’s Aligned, a finalist for the 2007 Eclipse Award in the division, was bidding for a second win in the series after a convincing victory over Imagina (Chi) in the Temple Gwathmey Hurdle Stakes on April 14. Imagina won the first leg, the Carolina First Carolina Cup steeplechase on March 29. 

Be Certain won for the third time in six career starts over the jumps for trainer Tom Voss and covered the distance in 4:54. The Price of Love finished third in the eight-horse field.

A four-year-old Thunder Gulch gelding, Be Certain settled behind the swift tempo set by early pacesetter Sunshine Numbers and advanced to second when Planets Aligned took over at the top of the stretch. Be Certain reeled in Planets Aligned in the final strides to prevail under Matt McCarron.

McCarron praised Be Certain as a game competitor despite his limited experience.

"He’s running against a real class horse in Planets Aligned, who tightened it up on us coming to the last fence,” he said. “For a four-year-old to pick up for me, lock on to the other horse, and dig in again is pretty special.”

Be Certain entered the National Hunt Cup off an allowance victory at the Virginia Gold Cup meeting on May 3. He won the Raymond G. Woolfe Memorial Hurdle Stakes on November 18 in Camden, South Carolina.

Bred in New York by Sugar Maple Farm, Be Certain is out of the Mountain Cat mare Do Mountain Doo, a half sister to Banshee Winds, dam of champion Banshee Breeze.

Myra Lewyn is a Thoroughbred Times Today editor