UNSOLD at €125,000 when he was offered for sale at the Goffs Champions Sale last month, Mctigue later joined Emmet Mullins to race for Paul Byrne. The pair had enjoyed big race wins previously with The Shunter.

Before the month was out Mctigue popped up in a juvenile hurdle at Sedgefield which he won by more than eight lengths, sent off the odds-on favourite. Less than three weeks later and the three-year-old gelded son of Fracas (In The Wings) was on his travels again, this time to Auteuil, and again he was in the winners’ enclosure after the Grade 2 Prix Georges de Talhouet Roy Hurdle.