McGrath shines on Powerful Out

Course bumper winner Powerful Out (7/1) came from well off the pace to land the mares’ handicap hurdle.

The John Kiely-trained daughter of Presenting was dropped out in a detached last by 7lb claimer Derek McGrath and still had plenty to do after the third-last flight of hurdles.

She began to make headway racing into the dip with two to jump and swept past 2/1 favourite Robyndeglory on the run-in to score by a length and a half. It was the six-year-old’s first win over hurdles at the tenth attempt.

McGrath said: “To be honest, I was worried coming down the hill, thinking I was after leaving it too late, but she has plenty of pace and once she switched off and conserved energy, we were happy enough.

“John had been talking to me at home, to try and drop right out and see would she spit it out with pace in the race because she wasn’t fully seeing it out the last few days she was placed. And it worked a treat.

“She wouldn’t be a huge fan of the soft ground, so I just tried to go a little bit wide where the ground wasn’t cut-up, and to keep it simple really.

“She obviously likes Tramore, so we’ll have to come back here again. I ride her plenty of days inside in John’s. I go in there a day or two a week and often ride and school her.”

“At the second-last (I thought I would get there) and then I thought I was nearly getting there too soon, on the way to the last. Timed to perfection, we’ll say.

“It’s great to have a local winner with John and Conor (Lannen, owner). John Kiely goes back a couple of generations with our family. He had horses for my grandparents, and he rode winners for them as well, so I’m delighted to get a winner back for him.

“I rode as an amateur for a good few years. I had a few point-to-point winners, and a couple of winners on the track, and then last year I turned conditional and that’s my first conditional winner.

"I go up to Keith and Marshall Watson a day a week, and they give me plenty of rides, they’re very good to me. And I go down to Liam Burke and he gives me rides, and I go into Henry De Bromhead’s as well. I just spread myself around.”

Quotes from Alan Magee