Hodd's Girl causes a 20/1 surprise in opening sprint

Michael Halford continued his good recent run of form as Hodd’s Girl caused a 20/1 shock in the opening Irishinjuredjockeys.com Handicap at Dundalk.

The Doneany trainer saddled a treble here last Friday and booked 5lb claimer Mikey Sheehy for the bottom weight in this five-furlong sprint.

The grey daughter of Zebedee was never too far from the pace and headed 13/8 favourite around a furlong from home.

She kept on well to beat that rival by a length and a quarter, with Blastofmagic a further two and a quarter lengths away in third.

Halford said, "Mikey said the last day he rode her that she was drawn wide and they were just gone and she didn't know what was happening. He said if he had been drawn lower he would have been a bit closer.

"She had sharpened up at home since and was 4lb better off with the second horse so I was hoping she'd be placed. The penny has dropped with her now and she's learning how to sprint. She was sharp today whereas the last day she was lost when they jumped.

“She's a grand big filly and handles that surface. She's very straight-forward and it's good to get a bracket with her. I wasn't so sure she'd handle this as she handled a dig in the ground really well. The owners just said to kick on this year and see if we could get her to do something.

“It's difficult for owners keeping them in training with trying to get them into races and everything else so rather than stopping and starting her again next year we said we'd keep coming up here. She's always shown a little bit but it's just taken a while to get it all together.”

(GC & AM)