Ocastle Des Mottes improves on Festival runner-up effort Willie Mullins' Ocastle Des Mottes (7/4) improved a position on his Galway festival runner-up effort in July when landing the 2m2f beginners chase at the Connaught course today. The Munir & Souede owned seven year old had previously finished behind stablemate Vicar Street in a longer-distance chase and today made all the running when scoring by 2.75 lengths from similarly owned Mongibello . The race featured 2025 Galway Hurdle winner Ndaawi who failed to keep tabs with the leaders, finishing held in fourth. Afterwards winning jockey Paul Townend said "its a while coming, I suppose. “His run here at the festival was obviously good, behind Vicar Street. He didn’t mind coming back in trip with the ground on the easy side. “He had the experience and the fitness so it was just a matter of putting it together today and I think conditions suited him. “He’s a tricky horse. Over two (miles) you want two-and-a-half and over two-and-a-half you want two miles. It’s been hard to find his niche. “Winning will do him the world of good and he’s going to be a nice fun horse. He’s just taken a bit of figuring out. “Bar extremes of going he seems fine. He handled nice ground here at the festival and handled slower ground today. He’s versatile enough, figuring him out is the hardest part.”
