Breakthrough win for trainer Budds in May Trainer Ken Budds gained a first feature-race success today as his nicely-bred Stormalong (9/1) landed Killarney's Listed MD O'Shea's Tourist Attraction Mares Hurdle, under an enterprising ride from Darragh O’Keeffe. A half-sister to two winners including 2016 English Grand National runner-up The Last Samuri, Stormalong had previously been twice placed at Grade 3 level and today, for breeding purposes, gained a breakthrough blacktype success. Racing behind the leaders on the inside, O’Keeffe later switched wide to the faster ground in the home straight, and in the closing stages, quickened to beat Royal Hollow by three-parts of a length. Budds, who led-up Aidan O’Brien’s famous first winner Wandering Thoughts at Tralee in 1993, reported “today was the plan as she is a proper summer mare. Her owners Barbara and Edmond Coleman bred Lord Windermere (Gold Cup winner) and It Came To Pass (Foxhunters), so are big breeders and the more black-type she gets, the better. “She struggled on the ground but toughed it out well. She is a real good-ground mare and we decided to race ‘down the paint’ early but Darragh said she was struggling and decided to come wide turning in. He said the minute she hit the good ground and from the second-last, he knew she’d catch the leader (Royal Hollow). “She could go chasing and can also go back to the Flat.”
