Lieutenant Colonel back in command after barren period

It’s been a while since Lieutenant Colonel called the shots – October 2016 to be precise – but the dual Grade 1-winning hurdler showed who’s boss once more, landing the feature 2m hurdle at Cork’s student raceday meeting under a canny Davy Russell ride.

Alive to the fact that Lieutenant Colonel, a winner of the Hatton's Grace and the Christmas Hurdle in his pomp in 2014 when trained by Sandra Hughes, stayed a lot further than the minimum trip, Russell positioned the Gordon Elliott-trained gelding on the heels of odds-on favourite Karalee for much of the contest.

With four flights of hurdles left to jump, Russell pressed on in the lead, and despite looking under pressure to hang on to that spot on more than one occasion in the straight, he narrowly held the challenge of Karalee by just over a length at the winning line.