Yellow silks Ruby Walsh leads Thanks For Tea (left) and Rock On The Moor home, aboard winner, Westerner Lady© Photo Healy Racing
It wasn't difficult to see where Willie Mullins' "she is gamey but Ruby was fantastic on her. I thought it was vintage Ruby," comment came from after Westerner Lady supplied himself and his stable jockey with a feature race double at Clonmel in the Grade 3 European Breeders Fund T.A. Morris Memorial Mares Chase.
The busy and tough, Thanks For Tea along with Rock On The Moor threatened danger on either side of even money favourite, Westerner Lady, over the closing couple of fences.
As Mullins intimated in that earlier remark, Westerner Lady wasn't lacking in courage, but Walsh certainly asked her the right questions at the right time and she passed the post with half a length and two and a half lengths to spare over Thanks For Tea and Rock On The Moor.
Mullins, previously on the mark with Alelchi Inois further explained: "We had set out to make it and then she started jumping left and wasn't happy. It took her a long time to warm up and come in her own time and he let her pop away and grow in confidence. He came and quickened it when it needed to be quickened.
"I don't know what our plan is now - she probably has done more than we expected her to do and we'll see whether we go further with her or wait until the spring. I hate stopping with them when they are winning and if we can find another mares race, we will run."
(TW & EM)
