Willie Murphy has done well with a handful of runners and trained his fourth winner of the season when Scare Malta made a winning debut for the Co Wexford trainer, in the Join The 2012 Members Club Maiden Hurdle at Tramore today.
Ridden by Barry Cash, the son of Discover d’Auteuil caused a 20/1 upset when readily defeating Alf Wright by three and three parts of a length.
The Stewards were busy in the aftermath of the race and inquired into interference on the run-in between runner-up Alf Wright and Suir View Girl They left the result unchanged but suspended Alf Wright's rider Shay Barry for two days for careless riding.
In an unrelated incident, the Stewards disqualified well beaten fourth Betterthanalright (a gamble from 25/1 into 7/1) as his rider Pat Mangan failed to weigh in. He was also suspended for two days as a result.
Afterwards Murphy said “I only have Scare Malta two months and he did one really good and one really bad pieces of work so I wasn’t sure which horse would show up!”
“I wanted to go point to pointing with him but his owner wanted to have one more try on the track and it’s nice to have winner for them.”
