Alpha And Omega in fine fettle

An absolute wall of horses spread across the track held chances jumping the second last in the competitive two mile handicap hurdle in Naas, but it was Alpha And Omega and Brian Hayes who found the most to win again.

Charles Coakley’s five-year-old gelding has hit a rich vein of form as he was following up on his seven-length hurdle success in Cork eight days ago. He faced a stern challenge from Arthur Moore’s Hop In who stayed on strongly from the last, but went down by a head after never quite getting on terms.

Hop In (8/1) was returning from an absence of 345 days and prior to that run he hadn’t been seen since December 2011. This was his third runner-up finish in-a-row so racing once a year isn’t doing the six-year-old any harm.

Run ‘N’ Jump, with Barry Geraghty deputising for the stood down Robbie Power, pleased his each way backers by taking third at 6/1 from 9s when betting opened today. Spacious Sky was hammered down from 5/1 this morning to 9/4 favourite for Tony Martin and Ruby Walsh, but he didn’t get into it in 10th of the 15 runners.

Cave Artist was a non-runner due to a stone bruise and that deprived punters of a fourth place dividend.

“I took a chance running him again in the space of a week. If the ground stays with us we’ll probably go for a novice in about a fortnight’s time,” Charles Coakley said.

Additional reporting by Gary Carson