Simenon wins for in-form Mullins

Willie Mullins enjoyed a memorable Galway Festival last week with a haul of nine winners and the Leading Trainer title and claimed another winner at Cork today, as Simenon justified 2/5 favouritism in the Joe Walsh Memorial Hurdle.

The son of Marju put in a few typically bold jumps before making a mess of the final flight but in the end proved 10 lengths too strong for High Nellie

Mullins later expressed his delight at winning the particular race, saying “it’s a great honour to win this race, in honour of Joe Walsh, who was Minister in charge of setting up HRI. In racing we owe a fair bit to Joe and his commitment and today hopefully will be a celebration of that.”

Regarding Simenon, he added “he can win over two miles, two and a half and three miles and is settling as he gets older and jumping. We had him entered in a novice chase in Galway and we could go down that direction - I’ll have a look at the programme book.

“He’s a lovely horse for an owner to have as he can run over hurdles, on the flat or over fences and we’ll be going chasing shortly.

“We might come back in trip for the first few races over fences - he’s probably not good enough to win those long distance flat races but we’ll have a look at it all first. He has schooled well over fences.”

Mullins edged Dermot Weld for his first Galway Festival Leading Trainer title and mentioned “Galway was fantastic - we had 17 runners and nine of them winners and couldn’t have asked for any more. We’ll do our best again next year!”

By Tom Weekes