THE five hours home from Kirkistown to Duncormick last Saturday evening didn’t feel as long as the trip north that morning for connections of Redbridge Rudi following the six-year-old’s victory in the afternoon’s three-runner winners of one.

Partnered as usual by Gary Murphy, the Fruits Of Love gelding was left on his own at the sixth last where the leading Clough Ranger was carried out (rejoining to finish a distant second).

“A win’s a win and the horse did his job well!” declared owner Michael Murphy who travelled up to the Ards Peninsula with Redbridge Rudi while his wife Ashleigh, the horse’s trainer, remained at home with five-week-old Polly and older brother Ben who is now “two and a bit” according to his father.

“Usually, if I go north I’d head up on a Friday and stay overnight but, with a new baby in the house, I had to do the trip in one day,” explained Michael. “When I do an overnight, I stay with a good friend of ours, Wilbert George, who, I’m pleased to say, had a good punt on the horse on Saturday as did Billy Holland and Sammy Hannah.

“The race didn’t take much out of Rudi on Saturday so he’ll more than likely run in the winners of two at Tinahely on Sunday (tomorrow). We’ve also got a nice four-year-old by Getaway entered at Durrow (today).”

Saturday’s success was the third of the season for Leigh Murphy following Redbridge Rudi’s maiden victory at Ballinaboola towards the end of January and Piri Massini’s win second time out at Ballindenisk in late November. That Pierre gelding was sold shortly after his success at the Tattersalls Ireland December Sale in Cheltenham.

A former graduate of the Duncormick yard, Lifeboat Mona, who won a Fairyhouse mares’ maiden on her only start between the flags in May 2014, recorded her fourth success on the track when landing a novices’ hurdle at Wincanton earlier this month for the Paul Nicholls yard. “Funny enough, Mona didn’t show us an awful lot at home but we had an idea of how good she was when we took her to a schooling bumper one day,” revealed Michael of the daughter of Kayf Tara.

RECOGNISABLE

At Kirkistown, Redbridge Rudi was led up by Andrew Walsh who rides out at the Murphys’ Redbridge Stables at weekends and during his holidays when he is joined by fellow secondary school student Sean Staples and the latter’s 12-year-old brother Eoin. During the week, the Murphys rely on the readily-recognisable Tollic who arrived in the yard 10 years ago from Lithuania.

The Murphys have eight to 10 pointers to run this season, nearly 40 young thoroughbreds (all Irish-bred) and a large number of sport horses, the oldest and best-known of whom is the top-class working hunter Wexford Pimpernel. “I wanted to sell him,” said Michael of the 12-year-old Kildalton King gelding, “but Leigh, who rode him to great success at Balmoral and Dublin, wouldn’t let me!”

Andrew gets to hunt Wexford Pimpernel on occasion but, at school, doesn’t have as much opportunity to follow hounds as often as Michael who has been hunting every week this season with the Killinick Harriers and has had a day or two with the Wexford Foxhounds as well.