Cahirdown Boy and Sean Flanagan© Photo Healy Racing
A dream week for trainer Eric McNamara at Listowel got even better as Cahirdown Boy brought up a treble for the Rathkeane man, leading home a stable 1-2 in the Paud, Sarah & Mary Fitzmaurice Memorial Handicap Chase.
Following winners on both Wednesday and Thursday, a double this afternoon had McNamara on four for the week prior to the running of this race.
Well represented with the top two in the betting, it was Cahirdown Boy who came out on top, leading home stablemate and fellow 3/1jf Gaelic Des Chastys
Both McNamara horses loomed up to challenge leader Likeable Chancer travelling nicely early in the straight. Sean Flanagan came through on the inner rail to lead after the final fence on the eventual winner.
Try as he did, Daniel King could never bridge the gap on the fast finishing Gaelic Des Chastys, who lost out by half-a-length.
Eric McNamara said: "The whole secret to Cahirdown Boy is to throw the reins at him, as it makes him settle: if you grab any hold of him, he will arrive at the second-last fence but his race will have been run. Once you throw the reins at him, he will settle.
"Sean did a marvellous job and while we weren't going to lead with (front-runner) Kilashee in the race, as long as the horse was relaxed he was going to come home well. That is why I wanted Sean to ride him.
"Sean Curran is a wonderful owner from Spiddle and has had three Kerry National winners for me. We go back a long way and while unfortunately he wasn't able to come today, his son Sean is here and will be more than happy to collect the trophy.
"Gaelic Des Chastys really loves quick ground but got away with it today."
Regarding his run of form, he added "we aimed for this week with a few horses and purposely didn't run the likes of Ifitwasme over hurdles, in preparation for Listowel. With some of the others, we didn't feel they needed to run beforehand and it has been an unbelievable few days. The horses are just in great form and they're fit and well."
Additional reporting by Thomas Weekes
