Winters stable stars clean up at September meeting

CORK trainer Michael Winters’ bond with Ballybrit will have grown stronger after Missunited confirmed her liking for the track when landing the Ardilaun Hotel Oyster Stakes on Monday – the highlight of the three-day Galway September meeting.

Triumphant in the Galway Guinness Hurdle at the recent summer festival and having also won a novice hurdle on the course the previous September, Missunited was given a perfectly judged ride by Seamie Heffernan to take the €50,000 contest.

Always up with the pace which was cut out by the hat-trick seeking Jazz Girl, the 4/1 chance got first run on odds on chance Eye Of The Storm and though Joseph O’Brien’s mount was closing rapidly approaching the line, Missunited still emerged a comfortable three quarters of a length winner.

It was her first track appearance since that emphatic victory from Flaxen Flare in Ireland’s richest National Hunt race at Ballybrit in July and Kanturk-based Winters is now considering aiming the versatile six-year-old at the mares hurdle at the Cheltenham festival next March.

Monday’s all-flat card saw the in-form Aidan O’Brien yard introduce an above average newcomer in Carlo Bugatti which got the better of a sustained duel with the Dermot Weld trained and market leader Whitey O’Gwaun in the Donnelly’s Of Barna Maiden.

Star Links from the Steve Donohoe stable burst clear of the pack in the final 100 yards to win going away in the Maggie May’s Handicap at 14/1, while the well backed Colour Blue eventually picked off long-time leader Sophie’s World up the straight to break her maiden status in the auction fillies race.

The two market principals in the James P. Cunningham Electrical Handicap led into the home turn and though Target Acquired faded to finish fourth on meeting the rising ground, 3/1 chance Harpist and Wayne Lordon galloped on resolutely for a convincing two and a half lengths success.

Tyrone based handler Andy Oliver provided the solution to the Galway Apprentice Handicap in 6/1 chance and the always prominent Stephen Hero, while the jockey find of the season, Connor King, drove Bint Nayef home in the tightest finish of the evening in the concluding Sean Cleary Memorial Maiden.

Twenty four hours later, all eyes were on Michael Winters’ other stable star and 2012 Guinness Hurdle winner, Rebel Fitz, and the eight-year-old certainly didn’t disappoint in pulverising a decent field in the Deacy Gilligan Novice Chase, the highlight of Tuesday’s card.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.