Keane takes his chance for Coffey's trainer

Dragon Of Malta credited Cheltenham festival winning trainer Pat O'Donnell with a second winner in two months as he landed the Shannon Handicap at Limerick today, under replacement jockey Colin Keane.

Declared jockey Shane Crosse was an absentee due to a high profile positive Covid-19 test and having missed a winner with Thinking Of You in the opener, also missed Dragon Of Malta's success under Keane.

O'Donnell ended a nine year winnerless spell with Dragon Of Malta at Killarney's August meeting, where he later declared “this monster is back in town!"

Today the Co Limerick based trainer of 1995 Coral Cup winner Chance Coffey added "every horse teaches you something and he certainly taught me last year; some horses can just take a lot of racing and he seems to take his racing. At times I was worried were we doing the wrong thing but we haven't been doing the wrong thing.

“He ran four times last month, he was bursting coming here and obvious on the soft ground we had to judge it and we made a good decision. He is a handy horse and you wouldn't expect it but he loves soft ground; I am surprised with his physique that he handles it but Dragon Pulses do have a great record in this type of ground.

“We'll discuss it with the owners and I said after Killarney that I'd love to aim for a big pot off a bottom weight but you have to go with the ground and he has certainly been my friend!”