Gaelic Warrior wins by 86 lengths on return after Cheltenham Festival near-miss

Tuesday: Tramore

Gaelic Warrior's return journey to Cheltenham is under way after a bloodless victory in the 2m maiden hurdle.

After being agonisingly denied by a short head in the Fred Winter at the festival in March, the Willie Mullins-trained four-year-old easily justified his 1-12 starting price under Paul Townend, with the race all but put to bed by the beginning of the second circuit – the absence of main market rival Timmy Tuesday helping matters.

Littel Flour set the early pace, but Gaelic Warrior was lurking ominously and took over as the field passed the judge for the first time.

He was kept up to his work by Townend and the presence of the loose horse Lucky Zebo probably helped him to go on to win by a mammoth 86 lengths.

"He was entitled to do that and it was good to get him back on track," said Townend.

"When Shane Fitzgerald [on Littel Flour] wanted to go on, I was happy. I just wanted to go a good gallop and get a good blow into him. He definitely did that."

Paddy Power reacted by cutting Gaelic Warrior to 16-1 (from 20) for the Supreme and 10-1 (from 12) for the Ballymore, but kept him unchanged at 16-1 for the Albert Bartlett.

Special win

The Noel Dooly-trained Cheerful Chap ran out a comfortable winner of the 2m5f handicap hurdle, a race run in honour of veteran trainer John Kiely, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame at his local racecourse.

Cheerful Chap was scoring for the first time at the eighth attempt, but his job was made a whole lot easier when 4-11 favourite Arctic Ambition unseated Jack Kennedy three out.

"It's lovely to win it as John was one of the first people to speak up for me when I was going to get my training licence," said Dooly. "He's a nice horse and that ground is exactly what he wants."

Indie rocks

The Robert Widger-trained Indie Belle got off the mark over fences when winning the 2m5½f beginners' chase under Davy Russell.

The five-year-old mare was beaten 24 lengths when last of five behind Darasso at 300-1 for a Listed chase at Thurles last week, but Widger was keen to get his only horse in training out again.

Widger said: "She ran well last Thursday and it was probably a bit soon to bring her back, but it was brilliant."

Strutting his stuff

The Gordon Elliott-trained Walking The Walk finally lived up to his name when justifying favouritism in the 2m5½f handicap chase.

Walking The Walk was scoring for the first time at the 26th time of asking, and winning jockey Jack Kennedy was delighted to see him get off the mark.

"He's a consistent horse," said Kennedy. "He's been knocking on the door and it was nice for him to get his head in front."

Results, replays and analysis

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