Con O’Keeffe had his fingerprints all over the Play Colossus Football Pools Maiden Hurdle at Tramore today as owner of Kilbarry Lodge Stud was responsible for the sire and dam of homebred Kilbarry Cushty who led home a 1-2 for the owner/trainer.

O’Keeffe stands Kilbarry Cushty’s sire Classic Cliche at his Co Waterford base and today’s winner is out of his mare Kilbarry Gem. Kilbarry Cushty was steered to victory today by in form 7lbs claimer Barry John Foley who improved the winner to challenge leader and stablemate Nicaragua at the second last before edging ahead on the run-in to score a length and ‘1-2’ success for O’Keeffe.

Afterwards O’Keeffe stated “this was the only eligible race both horses could run in at Tramore; Nicaragua couldn't run in the maiden hurdle yesterday due to the conditions of the race, while Kilbarry Cushty couldn't run in the mares bumper because she wasn't EBF qualified. So we were forced to run the two of them in the same race but it's a wonderful result!

“I bred the winner and we have the sire (Classic Cliche, standing at Kilbarry Lodge Stud) and dam (Kilbarry Gem) so it's wonderful. We'll celebrate tonight and go forward from there. We'll try and find a maiden hurdle for Nicaragua."

By Tom Weekes, quotes from Donal Murphy