PAT DOYLE has certainly started the new season with intent. The Tipperary handler has run three individual horses across the opening four weekends of the season and all three are already winners including O’Moore Park (93++) who was one of two impressive four-year-old winners at Umma House last Sunday.

The Walk In The Park gelding was always to the fore, however as the business end of the race approached turning in, it was particularly striking the ease at which he was able to open up without being asked a serious question to stamp his class on the race.

Valencia Borget (87+) dominated the mares’ equivalent by a similarly wide margin and having accounted for a number of previously proven rivals in doing so, it looks to have been a performance of real merit.

Many of the races at Tinahely on the same afternoon lacked early pace including the opening four-year-old maiden that was won in hard-fought fashion by Jomig Des Bois (90+).

Mighty Stowaway (117+) clearly thrives around the test that the Co. Wicklow venues as he won the open on this card for the second year in succession.

The winning margin may not have been as far as his 2020 annihilation of Rewritetherules, however in beating the talented Some Man, he undoubtedly ranks among the very top of the season’s early performers in the division.

Portrush

Saturday’s four-year-old maiden at Portrush produced an interesting winner in Ballyhigh (92+).

Despite his profile as a son of Canford Cliffs, he was certainly not stopping at the end of his three-mile test to win going away, but will surely be taking in shorter trips under rules now.

David Christie’s Vaucelet (105++) and Ask D’Man (103+) are two young horses that look set to play a big part in the open division this year after their season-opening successes, with the former really going from strength-to-strength.