Berto blossoms for McNamara at Down Royal Berto Ramirez benefitted from a drop in class when springing a 25/1 shock in the opening at Down Royal this afternoon. The Andy McNamara-trained gelding had been tailed off in the Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham on his last outing, when sent off a 250/1 shot. He travelled well to challenge going to the second last today for Aidan Kelly and despite flattening the flight there was soon in the lead. The Sea The Moon gelding asserted before the last and was untidy again. He galloped on strongly though late on to record a five-and-a-half length win over Astelia. McNamara said: "He does appreciate that better ground, we ran him on softer ground through the winter, and the lads were hoping that he would get into the Fred Winter. “It was on softer ground than he would like. He had some nice runs and just missed out on the Fred Winter, so they gave him a spin around in the Triumph just for a day out. "This is much more back to his own level of stuff today, but he did it well and travelled well. "You'd like to think he would be able to do something on the Flat as well - because we tried to get him into the Fred Winter, he's probably fairly exposed mark-wise over hurdles, so we had to come back for a maiden. "We'll see where he goes, there's rated novices and things for the summer. I'd say mixing and matching - the lads probably prefer hurdling to the Flat. That will be the priority, or we will aim that way. I'm sure the Flat will definitely feature along the way too." (Quotes by Michael Graham)
