GIGGINSTOWN bashers came off the bridle again on Sunday when the owners had the first five in the maiden hurdle at Navan, they went on to have the first three in the opener at Punchestown.

No, it doesn’t look too appealing when the same colours come past in twos and threes but Michael Verney calculated in the Independent this week that they spent €715,500 on their four winners: Mengli Khan, Daly Tiger, Judgement Day and Battleoverdoyen. Knock off Identity Thief and the £225,000 for Sometime Soon, killed on Sunday, and the profit and loss doesn’t balance too well.

Sinndar shone out

SINNDAR passed away this week and he was probably a very under-rated Derby winner. To have an Irish-trained winner at Epsom had become an unexpected pleasure. We perhaps became spoiled in the years that followed and forget that he linked the Vincent and Aidan O’Brien eras, being the only Irish-trained winner of the Derby in the years from El Gran Senor’s defeat to Secreto in 1984 to Aidan O’Brien’s first win with Galileo in 2001.

Perhaps he also suffered from being in that era where Aidan had Giant’s Causeway, Galileo, High Chaparral and Hawk Wing in three years of each other.

Well named

Australian runner Gatting (by Hard Spun – Stubborn).

Not so well named: Battleoverdoyen (Doyen – Battle Over).