Batman beats Kingdom to give Mullins one-two Batman Girac benefitted from an ice cool ride by J J Slevin to lead home a one-two for trainer Willie Mullins in the Michael J. Doyle Memorial Handicap Hurdle at Killarney. A winner in France as a three-year-old, the gelding was scoring for the first time in ten starts since arriving in Ireland. Highly tried on occasions, including when pitched into Grade 3 company on his stable debut, the now five-year-old finally showed on the racecourse what he has almost certainly been doing at home. Dropped right out by Slevin, the 7/2 chance made stylish headway from two out, sweeping through on the bridle to head stablemate Last Kingdom at the final flight. Easing clear on the run-in, the topweight never had to be asked for an effort in winning by three-lengths. J JSlevin said: "He can be a little keen and was so in the middle part of the race but jumped great. He has one run in him so I tried to conserve as much energy as I could. "It was a small field which helped, the ground has been well watered and it worked out well." Additional reporting by Thomas Weekes.
