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Tom Weekes

Tom Weekes

Keane bookends Champions Festival on a late-declaration

Sun 15th Sep 2024, 18:30

This Songisforyou and Colin Keane (left)This Songisforyou and Colin Keane (left)
© Photo Healy Racing

Trainer Emmet Mullins' late decision to run This Songisforyou (9/1) at the Curragh paid dividends today, as champion jockey Colin Keane bookended the Champions Festival in winning the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Northfields Handicap on the gelding.

Keane won the opening races on both Leopardstown's and today's Curragh fixture for his employer Ger Lyons and on This Songisforyou, produced the six-year-old from rear-division to eventually defeat Indigo Five

Mullins revealed “I thought he might need the run as he thrived so well since Galway so didn't fill Michael (Mee, owner) with much confidence. It was a last minute declaration but thankfully it's all worked out as it's a great pot to get. He's a been a great horse and is very versatile.”

He added “it was a very good ride but I probably didn't fill him with confidence either! I told him he might need the run and to ride him to run well, but he was ultra cool.

“He's still in the English Cambridgeshire in two weeks' time and if it turned up nice ground, he might go. He is ground dependent and likes to rattle off nice ground.”

Quotes from Gary Carson

About Tom Weekes
A lifelong racing fan, Tom began writing point to point reports in 2002 and has reported for irishracing.com since 2003, when he joined Irish Racing Services - since taken over by the Press Association. Has ridden a point to point winner and won the 2018 Irish Field Naps Table.