The West's Awake and Paul Townend© Photo Healy Racing
A morning radio rendition of The West’s Awake helped cure Edward O’Grady’s recent spell of seconditis when his horse of that same name made a winning fences debut in the Michael English Plays July 27th Beginners Chase at Limerick today.
Ridden by Paul Townend, the John Magnier owned the son of Yeats (backed from 100/30 - 5/2f) scored a four lengths win over Just Cause
O’Grady, who trained high class chaser Nick Dundee for Magnier in the 1990s, later revealed “I haven’t had a lot of runners recently but I’ve had seven seconds since my last winner. I was coming in from the yard this morning, after 6.30pm and what was on the radio - The West’s Awake! I thought ‘there was an omen’.”
He added “Paul (Townend) was very impressed with his jumping and he gave a lovely round so we’ll see what we’ll do now.
“He has never reached the potential that we thought he might have - he’s a gorgeous horse but missed last summer due to a prod of a nail so didn’t get a summer last year. Maybe he might find his niche over fences now, which would be very nice and while he’s in next Wednesday, it might come a bit quick and I don’t know where we’ll go next.”
