His song duly won the first chase of his career at Tipperary yesterday but only after a crashing fall by Go Roger Go saw a badly shaken Norman Williamson stretchered away from the last fence.

Williamson was taken to Cashel Hospital for observation but luckily escaped serious injury and was left cursing his luck because Go Roger Go looked to have had at least as good a chance of winning as His Song when he came down.

The pair had the race to themselves for the last half mile, but whereas His Song continued his good jumping, Go Roger Go barely took off.

Nevertheless, His Song pleased his trainer Mouse Morris and rider Tony McCoy after splashing his way through the rain-soaked ground.

"It's hard to assess because he is not fit enough yet for that kind of ground. He got tired but he jumped well and will come on a ton for that. He'll run next at either Galway or back here over two miles and six," Morris said.

On a day when the testing ground was more conducive to jump rather than flat horses, Dermot Weld still managed to saddle a brace of winners, with Pat Smullen deputising for Mick Kinane.

Two-Twenty-Two coped better than the opposition with the conditions in the Group Three Concorde Stakes and ran out an impressive three and a half length winner. Smullen was pushing Hamasah, blinkered for the first time, before the straight in the Cashel Handicap, but the filly responded admirably to beat the favourite Queen Of Fibres by two and a half lengths.

Merry Gale survived a bad blunder at the second fence when slipping into the ditch to win the L'Abbaye Handicap Chase under Paul Carberry, a victory greeted with relief by trainer Jim Dreaper.

"After the horrible fall he took in the Marlborough Cup, it's great just to win a race again. Since that fall he has been very wary of his fences but he will improve from that and go to Gowran next," said Dreaper.