Galway report:Davy Russell might have endured a nightmare in Wednesday's Plate but 24 hours later the jockey was the toast of Ballybrit after guiding the gambled on favourite Farmer Brown to a comprehensive success in the €210,000 Guinness Galway Hurdle.
Those among the massive crowd that invested enough to force the Pat Hughes-trained winner down to 9 to 2 hadn't a moment's concern as Farmer Brown travelled beautifully throughout and powered up the famous hill to beat the English raider Freeloader by two and a half lengths.
It was a very different story to Russell's experience on the Galway Plate favourite Conna Castle who was virtually pulled up while Russell's regular mount Sir Frederick went on to win.
"It's a big difference alright," grinned the season's leading rider who also scored yesterday on the Michael O'Leary-owned Field Commander in the novice hurdle. "The minute I got on him in the parade ring, everything went to plan. We felt he was the best horse in the race if he got a clear run and he never missed a beat. When he met the hill he went up it like a tiger!"
Russell revealed he was approached to ride Farmer Brown a month beforehand and added: "Pat (Hughes) and the owners were bursting with confidence the whole time so they were looking for someone to give a commitment. It's worked out great." Hughes, winning the race for the second time after Quinze in 1999, admitted "everything worked out to a tee." He added: "I was always confident with this horse because I felt he had the gears."
Farmer Brown showed enough of those gears yesterday to prompt a quote of 40 to 1 from William Hill about next year's Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham although Hughes declared that the six-year-old has already schooled impressively over fences. Farmer Brown races under the banner of Plantation Stud, the historic 187 acre farm outside Newmarket that the Irish property developer Dermot O'Rourke bought two years ago for a reported £3.5 million.
O'Rourke also has horses in training in Britain, France and Australia and stands the Irish 2,000 Guineas Araafa at his stud in Newmarket. This summer he also purchased a 220-acre stud farm in Kentucky.
Hughes might have trained the big race winner but he would have been pushed to match the satisfaction that Michael Hourigan got from Field Commander's earlier defeat of Jadanli.
Much of the first half of this year was ruined for Hourigan by a batch of diseased hay that resulted in his horses running way below-par for six months.
"From November to May I had just two winners and I was in real trouble. We were testing for everything but the one thing we didn't test was the hay. We were feeding them the problem. It was a nightmare," the Co Limerick trainer said.
"But we can forget about it now hopefully. The horses look well now and we haven't seen the best of this horse yet. He's a horse on the up and with them, you never know where they will end up," Hourigan added.
Sir Frederick's trainer Liam Burke was on the mark for the second day running over fences when the much travelled mare Prairie Moonlight proved to be much too good for Smuggler's Song in the novice chase.
Prairie Moonlight ran up to Group One standard in her native Germany and was also highly rated when trained in England by Charlie Mann.
"She's a good mare but trying to keep her right is the problem," said Burke who reported that the mare could be covered next winter."
"A great strong drive from Pat Smullen," was the verdict from Dermot Weld following In A Rush's head defeat of Perfect Memory in the fillies handicap, a race where the favourite Miss Gorica looked set to win until fading badly in the last furlong. Kieren Fallon's mount Black Beauty was the subject of a massive gamble from 16 to 1 into 5 to 1 in the mile handicap but the punt never looked like coming off and instead it was the 20 to 1 outsider Shayrazan who collected after getting a dream run up the rail in the closing stages.
"He got no sort of run here on Tuesday but in fairness, Chris Geoghegan looked after him and he wasn't even blowing when he came back," said trainer James Leavy. "Seamus (Heffernan) was patient too there and waited for the gap to come."
Favourite backers did, however, end the day on a high with Nina Carberry dominating the bumper on the Gordon Elliot-trained Recovery Man.
Yesterday's festival crowd of 46,637 smashed the €2 million mark for the first time in Ireland on the Tote. The final figure of €2,071,682 was €283,436 up on 2006. Bookmaker turnover was slightly down but still reached €4,411,408. It included €795,542 bet on the Galway Hurdle alone.
