EASILY the story of this meeting was the monster gamble landed by the Ronan McNally-owned and -trained Dreal Deal in the first division of the Baroneracing.com-sponsored 80-102 rated handicap hurdle over two and three-quarter miles.

The five-year-old was backed from as big as 20/1 into 6/4 favourite despite having shown precious little on 11 previous starts on the track. Indeed on his eight previous runs over hurdles, the closest he had finished to the winner came when he made his debut at this meeting last year and was beaten just under 35 lengths into 17th position behind Advanced Virgo.