Darver Star and Keith Donoghue © Photo Healy Racing
Darver Star rolled back the years with an impressive performance to claim the Deacy Gilligan Hurdle at Galway.
Gavin Cromwell 's charge was third in the 2020 Champion Hurdle but his form had been a bit hit and miss in the last couple of seasons.
The ten-year-old bounced back to winning ways at Kilbeggan last month and showed he retained plenty of his old spark when following up this afternoon under top weight in the two-mile-five contest.
Keith Donoghue tracked the front-running Discordantly on the 15/2 shot before letting him hit the front three from home.
He had his rivals at work over the second last and skipped clear down to the final flight, easing up late on to record a eight-and-a-half-length win over Happy Jacky
Cromwell said:- “I’m delighted with that performance giving away weight. He made it look simple!
“He’s able to get into his comfort zone over a longer trip and a little bit of juice (in the ground) is probably no harm. He wouldn’t want deep winter ground but that’s great.
“I’m sure the handicapper is going to reassess him after today and we might have to look outside these condition races.
“I wouldn’t completely rule out going back over fences but for the moment we’ll stay at what we’re at.”
5/4 favourite The Shunter was untidy at the second last and could only finish sixth.
The ground was changed to yielding after the race following heavy showers on course.
(Quotes by Alan Magee)
