Racing: Fosters Cross will make a swift return to action at Galway on Thursday after landing the carlton.ie/galwaycity Handicap, the feature event on day one of the Festival. The nine-year-old was successful over hurdles in March but failed to shine in four subsequent starts, most recently in two runs on the flat at the Curragh.
However, partnered by Colin Motherway in this two-mile heat, the 10-1 shot was prominent throughout and built up a healthy advantage before the field started to come back to him a little.
Motherway still had a bit up his sleeve though, and Fosters Cross kept finding to pass the post with four lengths in hand of Cry For The Moon with Table Mountain back in third.
Winning trainer Thomas Mullins is now planning a crack at the Guinness Galway Handicap Hurdle, in which Fosters Cross is due to carry 10st.
“He will definitely go for the Hurdle on Thursday,” said Mullins. “He never leaves a nut after a race, so hopefully he will be OK after this. He’s a great old horse to train, although winter ground is not his ground.
“He’s been buzzing all week and Colin said he was buzzing all the way down to the start. He was well due a big pot.”
Dermot Weld is eyeing a step up in class for Riviera Poet after he claimed the claregalwayhotel.ie & Ramada Hotel Card Club EBF Maiden.
Sent off a 2-1 shot, Riviera Poet had finished behind Aidan O’Brien’s subsequent Coventry Stakes winner Power on his racecourse bow and he was trailing another Ballydoyle inmate, Learn, inside the distance.
However, Riviera Poet found his stride in the last half-furlong and eventually pulled a length clear of the 4-6 favourite at the line.
Weld said: “That could well turn out to be the race of the week. It was a very good two-year-old race, and they are two smart horses. He had a hold up after his first run at the Curragh with sore shins, and I had to tighten him a bit more than I wanted to get here.
“You often need a Group horse to win here, and I think he is a Group horse. He’s in the National Stakes.”