THE result of The New York Turf Writers Cup, a Grade 1 hurdle staged at Saratoga last Thursday week, was not only a boost for trainer Leslie Young and her Banbridge-born husband Paddy, but also for the latter’s mother Frances who, at that time, was in hospital.

Leslie saddled the first two home in the two-mile, three-furlong race with Paddy, a five-time champion jumps jockey in the States who suffered a traumatic head injury in a fall in 2017, giving the leg-up on the winner, the Irish-bred Rashaan, to British jockey Tom Garner.