THE maiden hurdle that A Toi Phil won at Leopardstown on St Stephen’s Day looked like a good race at the time, but it looks even better since last Sunday.

Don’t Touch It, runner-up in the St Stephen’s Day race, ran out an impressive winner of the opening two-mile maiden hurdle at Leoapardstown on Sunday, while A Toi Phil himself was very good in landing the Grade 2 two-and-a-half-mile contest a half an hour later. And just as a bonus, Master Ruffit, who had finished sixth of the seven runners in that St Stephen’s Day maiden hurdle, sent off at 66/1 and beaten over a hundred lengths, won a Class 5 maiden hurdle at Ayr the previous Tuesday.

Vigil finished close-up third in that maiden hurdle, and he gets more interesting now. Dermot Weld’s horse looked a likely winner when he moved up on the outside of A Toi Phil on the run to the second last flight, but lack of a recent run probably took its toll on the holding ground.

That was Vigil’s first run since he finished fifth in the Cheltenham Bumper last March. Also, it was his first run over hurdles, so he is entitled to come on for it, possibly considerably.

He is a classy horse and he is obviously highly-regarded. He beat Bellshill in a bumper at the Leopardstown Christmas Festival last season, and remember that, the first time he ran in the Cheltenham Bumper, in 2014, Pat Smullen chose to ride him in front of the ultimate winner Silver Concorde.

He is set to run in the two-and-a-half-mile maiden hurdle at Punchestown tomorrow, and he should be winning his maiden soon before moving onto bigger things.