RACING on Easter Monday may have been dominated by the Gordon Elliott Show but Willie Mullins saddled three winners at Fairyhouse including Coquin Mans who landed the Grade 2 Keelings Irish Strawberry Hurdle in the colours of Belfast’s George Creighton.

Between Elliott’s two winners at the Co Meath track that day, north Co Dublin trainer Karl Thornton broke through the ‘barricade’ when Paper Lantern won the Fred Kenny Lifetime Service To Racing Handicap Chase. The Oscar gelding is owned by the Acorn Syndicate which holds its meetings and celebrations at McKenna’s Bar in Armagh.

Down in Cork, the Fitzgeralds Vienna Woods Hotel & Villas Cork Handicap Chase was won by the Medaaly gelding Shrewdoperator. The eight-year-old grey was bred in Bessbrook by Sean Collins out of the Fijar Tango mare Fitanga who was placed eight times over jumps in France.

The dam’s 2012 Stowaway gelding Castle North, who won the youngstock championship at Dublin in 2014 for Banbridge’s John Donaghy, is among the entries for the bumper at Limerick next Thursday. Rose Boyd’s bay, who fell at the last in a four-year-old maiden at Kirkistown in November 2016, was second of four to Getaway John on his racecourse debut at Punchestown in February.

The Watsons’ horses have been in good form this season and the Kayf Tara mare He Knows My Name landed the Glenview & Rathbarry Studs Mares Maiden Hunters’ Chase on Monday by two and a half lengths, having previously won two of her four starts between the flags this season. Whether trained on the track or between the flags by Keith or his son Marshall, He Knows My Name always runs in the colours of wife and mother, Claire.