Future looks bright for Bolger's Gilgamboa Gilgamboa made an encouraging start to his racing career with victory in the Corrib Food Products Maiden Hurdle at Galway on Monday and while his trainer Enda Bolger is looking to the future, also paid tribute to the contribution paid by John Thomas McNamara in the gelding's progression. Bolger, who missed seeing yesterday's race having organised and participated in the Athlacca Cross-Country ride, held in aid of McNamara, today reported “John Thomas (McNamara) did a lot of work with the horse early last year. He won a schooling hurdle at Thurles last spring and, when he came back in afterwards, was very sweet on the horse. “He is such a big horse, 17 hands, that we decided to give him the extra five or six months to mature and was due to run at Lemonfield (point to point, held on Sunday). However when we saw there would be less than ten runners in the race at Galway, we decided to run him there instead. “His dam is a half sister to Native Upmanship and he has the hallmarks of a nice three mile chaser down the road.” Gilgamboa, ridden to victory by Niall 'Slippers' Madden, carries the colours of J.P.McManus and Bolger says “he is named after a friend I've known in the States for ten years (Gil Gamboa) and I'm delighted he won. J.P.'s son Kieren also bred the horse and we've known Gil for many years; hopefully he'll be over in Ireland some time to see the horse run.” “We'll pick and choose his targets this season but he'll stay over hurdles for now and will space out his races. It was a middling type of race yesterday but he's a nice horse to have around the place!” By Thomas Weekes
