Dark Note keeps the Good Times rolling

Dark Note (9/4jf) switched codes after winning over hurdles at Sligo on Sunday and it was the same result on the Flat in Tramore.

The four-year-old gelding contested the GAIN The Advantage Series Handicap over a mile and a half and picked up the lead from Je T'ai Porte just outside the final two furlongs. Expound (3/1) followed him through racing to the final furlong and the pair soon settled down for a scrap. Dark Note was always just holding the challenger, though, and flashed past the post with half a length in hand.

Trainer Andy SIattery said: "It was a bit of a gamble running him again so quick after being in Sligo on Sunday. We had him in this and we said we'd have a go as he was well in himself.

"He is getting more resolute, he wasn't when we got him first. I think he will stay two miles on the flat as well. He was running too free when we got him and not settling, but hurdles seem to have changed that. 

"We claimed him out of a claimer from Joseph O'Brien's. He was €15,000 and has won two now in a week. He was placed a few times before that and the lads (For The Good Times Syndicate) are getting a great bit of fun out of him. The lads in the syndicate are from Dublin, Monaghan and Limerick. I had a couple of lads looking for a horse and I got the five of them together. 

"We might run him over hurdles on the Monday of Galway in a winners' of one. Then there is a handicap over a mile-and-a-half on the Saturday for him as well. That's the plan at the moment." 

This was a first Tramore winner for the trainer's son, Andrew Slattery, who said he now has to ride a winner at Thurles, Clonmel and Laytown to complete the full set of Irish racecourses. 

Additional reporting by Donal Murphy