Princess Nutley provided Curragh trainer Jim Gorman with a second Derrinstown Birdcatcher Nursery success in three years when running out a comfortablewinner at Naas yesterday.
The top handicapper and recent Listed winner, Cobourg Lodge, scored for Gormanin 1998 but even he couldn't win as impressively as Princess Nutley, who only had to be pushed out by Eddie Ahern to beat Zaraglen by a length and a half."It's been a lucky race for inc. Anything I've run in it has done well," said Gorman, who calculated Princess Nutley as his 12th winner of the season - "and I've had lots placed!"
He added: "She had a very good run behind Juniper to her credit and I thought she didn't stay the last day. So the plan was to come as late as possible." The winner is the first horse owned by Dublin business-man Tom Jones. It was business as usual in the juvenile races, with Aidan O'Brien winning bothmaidens. The fillies race went off 20 minutes later than planned after a runnerbolted, it didn't stop Colm O'Donoghue getting Gypsy Rose home by a fast diminishing head.
There was no such drama in the colts race, however. The 2 to 9 Ishiguru, a$1,150,000 purchase, sluiced up by 11 lengths, and O'Brien didn't hesitate to out-line ambitious sprinting plans for next year. "The Greenlands Stakes, followed by Ascot, followed by the July Cup," outlined O'Brien, who added: "This horse is a bullet. He has blinding speed."
It was far from business as usual in the Retza & Soudavar Garnet Stakes as the 12 to 1 Molly-O ran out a neck winner from the 20 to 1 shot, Cakestown Lady, and notched up a first Listed success for her trainer Michael Halford in the process.
Halfurd, 38, has had the best season of his 17-year long training career, with 20 winners on the flat alone, and he said: "This filly just keeps defying it and is so tough. She started this year with a 64 rating and I'd this race in mind to try and get her placed for sonic black type."
Tarwila may have been the outsider of John Oxx's pair for the Coughlan Handicap, but she had John Murtagh on her back and the filly ran from last to first to score. That's her third win and she's a handy filly," said Oxx, who reported Tarwila will be retired at the end of the season.
The favourite, Kiniberley, looked a lost cause for the handicap hurdle when Persian Isle kicked in the straight but Philip Carberry's mount remorselessly got back into contention and eventually ran out a length winner from More Than A Stroll.
