GALWAY FESTIVAL DAY FOUR:IT TOOK Graham Lee nearly 20 years, but Overturn's victory in yesterday's Guinness Galway Hurdle finally proved to be a "dream come true" homecoming for the locally born jockey.
Considering Lee has, through the course of his career, managed to win an Aintree Grand National (2004) and the leading rider award at the Cheltenham festival (2005), his obvious satisfaction at yesterday’s success carries even more weight.
For despite carving out a career as one of the top National Hunt riders in Britain over the last decade, the 34-year-old had to wait until yesterday to notch a first winner at the track that is within walking distance from where he grew up in Mervue.
That it came in the €250,000 festival centrepiece only added to the resonance for Lee, who left school at 15 to pursue his racing dream. A brief spell with Des McDonogh was the only local interlude, before Lee crossed the Irish Sea. Yet it surprised many that Overturn was just his fifth winner in Ireland.
Just the day before, his Plate mount Grand Slam Hero fell at the first fence, but Overturn, only the third British-trained horse to win Ireland’s richest hurdle race, never provoked a moment’s doubt as he made all the running to beat last year’s winner Bahrain Storm, with the favourite, Dirar, in third.
“Donald (McCain) told me to ride him as if I was brain-dead, just leave the brain in the weighroom,” Lee reported. “He was very free going to the start so I knew we were ready to rock and roll. To win like that with 11.6 on his back is some performance. And this is a dream come true for me.”
Lee’s Grand National winner, Amberleigh House, was famously for Red Rum’s trainer “Ginger” McCain, whose son Donald is now in charge at their Cheshire yard. With all three of Overturn’s usual riders, Jason Maguire, Brian Harding and Timmy Murphy, on the injury sidelines, McCain turned to his old ally.
“We’re out of our comfort zone coming to Ireland and I’m delighted for owner Tim Leslie, who has made such a difference to our yard. We spent a long time watching races like this, hoping to be involved,” McCain jnr said.
“This horse is improving so much, and after a tough race in the Northumberland Plate he came out doing handstands the following morning. That’s when we decided to come here. It’s tough on Jason (Maguire), but Graham rode a National winner for us and rode a great race there,” he added.
Overturn was so impressive he generated 25 to 1 quotes for next year’s Champion Hurdle, and Bahrain Storm’s trainer, Pat Flynn, said: “The winner looked very good and could be a Grade One horse. Our fella jumped very well and just met a better one on the day.”
More immediately, though, for a horse who was beaten off a mark of just 95 in the winter, but whose hot-streak now includes a Scottish Champion Hurdle, a Pitmans Derby and a Galway Hurdle, there is the possibility of reverting to the flat in the Ebor at York in a fortnight.
“We’re taking it race by race with him,” grinned McCain. “But he is some horse and today has been brilliant.”
Yesterday’s action will also live long in the memory of Aidan O’Brien’s teenage son Joseph, who secured a 142 to 1 double with a short-head win on Dusty Trail in the mile-and-a-half handicap and a controversial promotion in the stewards room that secured the mile handicap for Luttrell Lady.
O’Brien endured a rough route through the closing stages and collided into favourite Designated Decoy a couple of hundred yards out. However, it was an incident 100 yards from the line, when the stewards judged that Separate Ways caused Luttrell Lady to check, that provoked the demotion of David Marnane’s horse, who passed the post half-a-length in front of his rival.
If O’Brien’s luck seemed to be in with that call, it was out in the following seven-furlong handicap as Anam Chara was headed close home by the well-backed favourite Smart Striking.
However, Marnane’s luck also changed in the bumper as the 33 to 1 shot Coronea Lily made a winning debut to provide jockey Robbie McNamara with a fourth festival success in a row this week.
Barry Geraghty gave a barn-storming performance to land the novice chase on Beau Michael, but his effort resulted in him getting a one-day whip ban.
Attendances took another step forward yesterday when the Ladies Day crowd of 44,418 was up 2,000 on last year. Bookmaker turnover of €2,861,791 was down €261,251. The total included €517,407 on the Galway Hurdle. A Tote tally of €1,329,114 was down less than €50,000.
