Kims Dream provides Shane Gray with his third winner at the Festival© Photo Healy Racing
Kims Dream got Noel Dooly’s second stint as a trainer off to a flier at Wexford last month, and she followed up in convincing fashion in the 1m4f handicap at Tramore.
Shane Gray was the star of day one at the August Festival meeting yesterday with a double aboard Stepping Down and Prince Chaparral, and he was back in the limelight here again. Benbecula assumed his usual front-running role from flagfall but was strongly pressed by Sabaidee in the dip before Gray produced Kims Dream (11/4) to swoop around the pair on the outside.
The six-year-old stayed on really well to the delight of her local syndicate to beat Sabaidee by two and a half lengths.
15/8 favourite Zafarqand appeared all at sea on the tight turns and undulations and was nearly four lengths further back in third.
Dooly said, “She’s done it again. We’ve rejuvenated her. I was disappointed with all the rain in Galway as we thought she would have won the mares hurdle there.
“This was plan B, and I wasn’t going to enter her but I decided to when there was so few entries the other day. I didn’t think she would handle the ground, and thought she would want it a bit better. She is in again at Roscommon on Monday, and might go there for a 0-75 rated handicap.”
Dooly, who took a six-year break from training before renewing his licence last month, shares a training establishment at Clonroche with Kims Dream’s former trainer Lar Byrne.
This was a sweet victory for the Tramore-native whose family has a well-known fish and chips outlet in the town.
Additional reporting by Donal Murphy
