Cottie and Darragh O Keeffe win the Ancient East Mares Maiden Hurdle© Photo Healy Racing
The Henry De Bromhead trained Cottie gained an overdue win in an incident packed Ancient East Mares Maiden Hurdle at Clonmel.
Darragh O'Keeffe did well to avoid the melee as four horses came to grief at the third hurdle. He had to switch his mount around a faller but from there it was mostly plain sailing for the odd on favourite.
It momentarily looked as if the partnership had nowhere to go on the run down to the second last flight but O'Keeffe had enough horse underneath him to get out of trouble.
An untidy jump at the final flight probably lessened the eventual winning margin but in truth the De Bromhead mare had plenty in hand.
Winning trainer Henry De Bromhead said; "I didn't get a chance to see the race yet but apparently we were lucky not to be brought down. It is great she won, I'm delighted for Pimlico who are great supporters of ours and it is lovely Darragh won on her.
"She was unlucky not to win one last year and came back bigger and stronger after her break and hopefully now will kick on from there. All those rated novices hurdles and handicap options are open or maybe she could go over fences as she is a lovely scopey mare who jumps well."
Additional reporting by Thomas Weekes.
