THE ageless Ted Veale showed that the class that carried him to a Cheltenham Festival triumph in 2013 still burns brightly as he defied top-weight in the featured Guinness Handicap.
A winner at this meeting in 2012 and 2015, the John Breslin-owned gelding was chasing a first premier handicap success on the flat at the age of 10.
A couple of recent outings over jumps gave cause for encouragement and apprentice title contender Oisin Orr claimed a valuable 5lb.
Over the last few days it had been a struggle for those held up off the pace and Ted Veale had work to do from sixth inside the final half mile but he found plenty when he needed to. He closed in on Ibsen and then moved ahead inside the distance. Ibsen rallied well once headed but Ted Veale was always holding him and the 6/1 chance succeeded by half a length.
“He’s some old horse. He’s been around a good while and I wish I’d a few more like him,” said Tony Martin. “I use Oisin plenty, I think he’s an excellent rider and I think he’s one of the stars of the future and he was very good there. We’d a bit of trouble with this horse last year and he was off from one Galway to another but he’s back healthy and well and we will keep going with him.”
A superb season for Not A Bad Oul Day (10/1) took yet another turn for the better as Johnny Feane’s teak tough five-year-old landed the Bank Of Ireland Handicap.
This was a sixth victory of 2017 for the five-year-old. Dylan Hogan sent his mount straight to the front and the pair were chased throughout by Tribal Path who couldn’t find a way past and went down by a length and a half.
“I was just holding my breath in the last furlong hoping he’d hold on and he did. The horses have been running well lately and we finished third, fourth and fifth in the premier handicaps last weekend,” reflected Feane who trains the winner for Declan Lynch. “This horse might go Chester in a couple of weeks.”
Pat Smullen joined Colin Keane at the head of the flat jockey’s championship as the Harry Rogers-trained Lord Erskine followed up a recent Roscommon triumph in the John & Terry Moriarty Memorial Handicap. Lord Erskine had to defy a 13lbs rise in the weights. The Jeremiah Nolan-owned 7/4 favourite led inside the final half mile and gradually subdued Shoulda Lied to finish with three and thee quarter lengths to spare.
“I wouldn’t say he was in love with the ground but he handled it and he was up the pace which helped as it’s hard to come from behind here,” reported Rogers. “He is in over hurdles at Ballinrobe on Thursday but we might just leave hurdles alone until next year.”
The Mouse Morris-trained Dromnea (9/1) registered his first victory since January 2015 in the Southampton Goodwill Chase. The Ann Daly-owned and bred gelding e was much the best in this two and a half miles event. Mark Enright’s mount had the chasing Hidden Cyclone and two good jumps put the seal on a two and three quarter lengths triumph.
“He was a little wrong at the weights with a couple of them but he’s won well. He’s not an out and out three miler but he probably will get an entry in the Munster National at Limerick next month,” declared Morris.
Mark Enright went to record a double as Dermot McLoughlin’s Turbojet (1/2) enjoyed a leisurely victory in the John J. Galvin Maiden Hurdle. The 122-rated gelding never came under the slightest semblance of pressure to finish 21 lengths clear of his rivals.
Gavin Cromwell made it two winners in as many days as Lady Camelot (9/1) made a winning debut in the Foran Equine Irish EBF Auction Fillies Maiden. A second success of the meeting for her freshman sire, the filly showed a fine attitude in the closing stages as she answered Shane Foley’s every call. Lady Camelot carries the colours of Eugene Bourke who owned Jer’s Girl during the formative stages of her career.
Eugene O’Sullivan and jockey Cathal Landers combined to take the Paud, Sarah & Mary Fitzmaurice Memorial Handicap Hurdle with Gold Smoke. The Crooked Crew Syndicate-owned mare was notching up her second victory of the season.
The Philip O’Connor-trained Masons Daughter (100/30) ran out an easy winner of the concluding mares’ bumper under Kevin Brouder in the colours of Philip O’Connor and John Hallahan.
ACTING STEWARDS
M. McMahon, S. McDonogh, J. Moloney, M. Carroll, L. Walsh
HORSE TO FOLLOW
SHOULDA LIED (W.P. Mullins): He has run several solid races in defeat lately and his latest second to Lord Erskine suggested that he will be able to make his mark before the season draws to a close.