Thread Of Gold bags another big prize at Galway

Billy Lee produced Thread Of Gold with a perfectly timed challenge to claim victory the lucrative Guinness Handicap on day five of the Galway Festival.

The three-year-old looked an exciting prospect when winning on his racecourse debut at the Curragh last summer for Willie Mullins in the colours of his wife Jackie, after which he was sold to Team Valor International and Gary Barber.

He was well beaten on his first start for his new owners in Leopardstown’s Eyrefield Stakes in October but has fared better since his return, with a comeback third at Listowel following by success in the valuable Nasrullah Handicap back at Leopardstown in early July.

Stepping up to a mile and a half for the first time, Thread Of Gold was the 3-1 favourite to bag another big prize in this €110,000 contest and while he still had plenty of horses in front of him rounding the home turn, he picked up well once angled wide to win comfortably by a length and three-quarters.

Mullins, saddling his seventh winner of the meeting so far, said: “He’s improving hugely and the step up in trip was fantastic for him.

“He was very free early on but Billy got him settled in behind. When you look at the head on you’d say he had no chance coming through that wall of horses but Billy said he had so much horse underneath him he was just waiting for an opening. As soon as it opened he was gone.

“He has plenty of speed, you saw that last year. What he also has now is stamina and with the two of them we have a proper racehorse.

“He’ll be out of handicaps now so we’ll look at Listed or Group races.”

The Closutton handler was completing a double on the card, having earlier teamed up with Harry Cobden to land the Guinness Beginners with the John Magnier and JP McManus-owned Vicar Street.

A son of Galileo out of top-class racemare Vroum Vroum Mag, the seven-year-old was third on his fencing debut at Punchestown and built on that with an emphatic success as a 13-8 favourite.

“He was very good. There was a little bit of class about him the way he finished – he just strode away from them,” Mullins added.

“He’s out of a very good mare and looks like one that could go into black type (Graded) company as well.”

The biggest jumps races of the evening was the €80,000 Guinness Galway Blazers Handicap Chase, which went the way of the locally-based 5-1 favourite Kings Hill.

Fitted with blinkers for the first time, Paul Gilligan’s grey raced enthusiastically throughout in the hands of J J Slevin and after hitting the front on the approach to the second fence from home, he found plenty from the final bend to score by three and three-quarter lengths from the Mullins-trained A Penny A Hundred.

Gilligan said: “On home soil, it’s lovely to win here. This race has been good to us – it’s the third time we have won it.

“We’ve hunted with the Blazers as we grew up and my kids hunted with the Blazers. They are all involved at home and it’s a credit to them really. My name is only on the licence – it’s a real team effort.

“I would say we’ll work back from the Galway Plate next year. Horses for courses. He’s a course and distance winner now so we’ll strongly consider it.”