Joseph O’Brien – The Weekend Lowdown

It was another brilliant night at Dundalk on Friday with more winners and placers for us.

The Main Stars
Tommy Welsh won nicely on the night and he had won his previous start at a mile and a half at Dundalk a couple of weeks before this. We were a bit worried about the two miles but he got it nicely and won well.

That’s two on the bounce for him now and there’s plenty more to come.

A lot will depend on the handicap he gets.

War Goddess ran a great race also to finish second. She’s been placed any amount of times at Dundalk over the winter and she managed to win one so she’s had a great winter too. I’m extremely happy with her.

Circus Ring ran well on his first start for us. This was his second start and I was absolutely overjoyed to see him win with Donnacha on board. He’s a lovely horse and handled the drop down in trip very well and he looks like he’ll give his owners plenty of runs for the Spring.

Ligeti had another good run too off 72, his first run was 65 so it was a big step up in grade. He looks like he’ll be competitive in that grade so I’m very happy with that.

Turf Prep
It’s only March but we have our two-year olds in getting ready for the turf. At the moment we’re not doing that much with them but we’re looking forward to getting them started.

Leopardstown
Our 1-2-3 in the Bumper at Leopardstown was a great effort. We really didn’t expect it. They’re three very nice horses. Third placed Cornelius Sulla had been running consistently well and High Tide won well, Jamie liked him a lot before it and gave him an excellent ride.

We didn’t expect him to win by 7 and a half lengths but we knew he would go very close. Second placed Us And Them is a grand horse and is one for the future.