Leader destroys them in Thurles feature

John 'Shark' Hanlon's Western Leader bred by his partner, Rachel O'Neill's father, Ronnie, put up an excellent performance to land the Grade 2 Michael Purcell Memorial Novice Hurdle by twelve lengths under Conor O'Farrell.

This success clearly meant a lot to the 'Shark' as it commemorates a man, Michael Purcell, who was "very good" to the Kilkenny trainer when in his former career, the big man dealt in cattle.

Western Leader led and shared the lead at stages with the mare, Premier Victory but he shook her attentions off up the straight to win comprehensively.

Hanlon said: "That's three Grade 2s now in 6 weeks (two for Luska Lad) so we're not going too bad. He was very good there and he'll probably now go to Aintree for the two and a half or three miler. He'd stay forever. He'd handle better ground too and I always thought he was better than Luska Lad. He'll go chasing next season.

"Conor said when he came in that we didn't see how good he was yet and he is right."

The past two days have been good to winning owner, Barry Connell, as he also returned to the saddle yesterday after injury.

Hanlon made it a double half-an-hour later with the Davy Russell ridden Misala