Oxx off the mark with Tullyallen

The John Oxx-trained Tullyallen made a winning farewell to Irish racing when claiming victory in the ten furlong maiden at Cork. Sandaryann looked to have his rivals on the stretch when setting sail for home early in the straight.

Tullyallen picked up well for Niall McCullagh, however, and chased down that rival passing the furlong pole.

The son of Arcano galloped on strongly in the closing stages to post a five-and-a-half length victory at odds of 3/1.

Tullyallen had been placed on his first start for the yard when third at Dundalk earlier in the month and is scheduled to head to Singapore next Thursday.

It was a first winner of the season for Oxx and he said:-

"He had the advantage of the run at Dundalk and was crying out for distance even though he is a half brother to Limato, but he is a stayer and is a lovely big long rangey horse.

“He is very adaptable and has run well on the polytrack and then runs and wins on the opposite here.

"He is a lovely, generous horse with a lovely temperament and any trainer would like to have him in his stable but he's on his way to Singapore on Thursday and is booked on the plane.

"We're sorry to lose but he's gone for export as his owner (Zhang Yuesheng) has a lot of horses in the East and China."

Regarding his plans for the year ahead, he added "Niall McCullagh and a couple of other jockeys ride work for me and we'll use the best available jockey and whatever the owner wants.

"Hopefully we'll be a bit busier this year and hopefully we'll do better as we have more horses this year and have nice new owners and some nice old owners have come back again.

"We have some nice backward two year olds and the standard might be going up a bit."

The Dermot Weld-trained Zamroudpour stable-mate of Sandaryann, was sent to post the 11/10 favourite but couldn't quicken in the straight and faded to finish fifth.

(Quotes by Tom Weekes)