‘Brilliant’ ride by Doc Hay sees O’Meara maintain sprint magic

This was another notable victory in the burgeoning career of the likeable handler, based at Nawton near York, who has also won successive renewals of Ripon’s Great St Wilfrid Stakes with Pepper Lane.

There is every possibility that Doc Hay will reappear in this Saturday’s Ayr Gold Cup, a remarkable accomplishment given the scale of O’Meara’s training performance with this horse.

Look at the facts. Doc Hay has not won since October last year when he won a modest handicap at Pontefract while being trained by Hamilton-based Keith Dalgleish, another rising star of the training ranks.

Owner Seamus Laffan then decided to switch Doc Hay to O’Meara’s yard, citing a desire to cut down the time that the horse spends in the horse box en route to races.

Doc Hay then had three confidence-boosting runs, never finishing better than third, before O’Meara decided to give his horse a two-month lay-off ahead of his reappearance at Haydock where his charge finished fourth just over a week ago.

It meant he was spot on for Doncaster, despite going up an eyewatering 17lb in the handicap since his Pontefract win in October 2011, and Daniel Tudhope brought the five-year-old from the rear of the field with a tremendous run down the near side to snatch the spoils.

“He’s been a good horse for the past 12 or 18 months. He came back from a break at Haydock, where the ground was plenty quick enough,” said a modest O’Meara.

“We brought him back with this race in mind and it’s great it came off. I don’t really think there is a Midas touch.”

As for Tudhope, just three words were needed to sum up his exhilaration as his alliance with O’Meara reached a new height: “This is brilliant,” he said.

Meanwhile, Thirsk trainer Dandy Nicholls believes Inxile could land the Prix de l’Abbaye, Europe’s top sprint, next month after just failing to land yesterday’s trial race at Longchamp when Robert Cowell’s Monsieur Joe led home a British one-two.

Inxile led with Monsieur Joe in touch and always going best before wearing his rival down in the final furlong. “The ground did him today, it was much too quick, but he will be back here for the Abbaye,” said Nicholls.

The same Longchamp meeting yesterday saw Japan’s Triple Crown winner Orfevre advertise his Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe credentials with victory in the Qatar Prix Foy.

Dawn Approach continued his march to the top as the ante-post 2000 Guineas favourite made it five wins from five with an impressive success in the Vincent O’Brien Stakes at the Curragh.

In doing so, the Jim Bolger-trained son of New Approach made it a day to remember for Godolphin, in whose colours he was running for the first time, after Sheikh Mohammed’s team won the Ladbrokes St Leger with Encke.

“I was a little apprehensive of the ground, but after that I wouldn’t be worried about running on ground a little worse,” said Bolger who saddled New Approach to win the 2008 Epsom Derby. “He’d have to be right up there with the very best of them that I have trained.”

Tommy Carmody’s Royal Diamond, runner-up in the Ebor at York, stepped up to Group One level to claim the Gain Horse Feeds Irish St Leger in a pulsating finish at the Curragh.

Carmody was one of the finest jump jockeys around in his day and the winner of three consecutive King Georges at Kempton when stable jockey to the legendary Dickinson family who trained at Gisburn and then Harewood.

Royal Diamond does not have the profile of a Classic winner – the six-year-old gelding could only finish third in a lowly maiden at Fakenham on New Year’s Day when ridden by Dougie Costello.