WE don’t usually associate trainer Paul Nolan with breeding big race winners, but this is just what he did at the weekend when Zero Ten, watched by a huge television audience, landed the spoils in the Grade 3 Pierce Molony Memorial Novice Chase at Thurles, taking home the lucrative pot of €33,000 on offer to the winner. That was just €1,000 less than what the seven-year-old brought in the sale ring when he sold at the Goffs Land Rover Sale in 2016 to Rachel O’Neill.

The son of Shantou (Alleged) started his career in the point-to-point field with John ‘Shark’ Hanlon, winning at the third attempt. He then ran sixth on his racecourse debut in a Galway bumper before moving to Emmet Mullins. A year later, back at Galway, he won a bumper, a few months later returning to land a maiden hurdle, and he was back at the summer festival last year to take a beginners’ chase. He has been successful three times in all over hurdles and twice over fences, and was denied a Grade 2 success by three-parts of a length over hurdles at Fairyhouse.