THE best made long-term plans can often end up in flames around the planes of Ballybrit but they came fruition for local boy Danny Gilligan and Meath owner Eamon Waters when Ash Tree Meadow went three better than last year in the Tote Galway Plate.

The planner was Gordon Elliott and we shouldn’t be surprised. This was a fourth Plate in eight years for him so he knows what it takes and he saw enough in Ash Tree Meadow’s run to be fourth here last season, when he was a six-year-old novice.