29-07-2025
Pivotal Attack has Murphy dreaming big again
The Colm Quinn BMW Fillies' Maiden on Tuesday's card in Galway has been won by some high-class sorts and in Pivotal Attack, trained by Joe Murphy and ridden by Gary Carroll, this year's running has a winner with the potential to maintain the race's standing.
The Pinatubo filly may lack a bit of size but the same was said of stablemate Cercene and that lady gave their trainer the biggest success of his career when winning the Group 1 Coronation Stakes. Quite whether she can scale those heights will only be revealed in the fullness of time, but connections are not afraid to dream.
'Gary said she relaxed well and when he asked her to quicken, she did, so I think we have a very nice filly going forward,' said Murphy. 'You're always afraid of the O'Brien filly (runner-up Ameila Earhart). There was good word of her and she might have been a bit unlucky, touching the rails, but our one was very professional.
'The curve will be upwards. She's out of a Pivotal mare and we think she's stakes class.'
With the exception of connections, Sticktotheplan was not part of too many people's plans prior to the day's opener, the listed Colm Quinn BMW Novice Hurdle. A blanket could have been thrown over the seven runners as they raced into the dip before the turn for home, but the winner, trained by Cormac Farrell and ridden by Ricky Doyle, went the daring route, down the inside, and it gained reward as the 22-1 chance asserted late.
'We fancied him and had a few quid on him — we've always thought he was a very smart horse,' admitted Farrell. 'It's taken time for the penny to drop and to race correctly. His jumping has come together, and he has a huge future.
'I tried to sell him on several occasions, but nobody would buy him, so I'm delighted because I'll be properly paid for him at some stage! I'm a big fan of him. He's a very exciting horse. He's not really a summer type either, I was glad to see rain last night because today is as good as he wants it. He handles heavy ground and works like a very high-class horse.'
The Latin Quarter Beginners' Chase was next up, and it seems every punter wanted to take on morning favourite King Of Kingsfield. Though the class act of the race, he was without a win in some time and the market spoke against him to the extent that he was sent off a very easy-to-back 7-2.
He took time to warm to the task, but Jack Kennedy brought him to challenge My Great Mate in the straight and he raced away late on to win well.
'He had a couple of hard races last year, leading the mare (Brighterdaysahead) around, but I was delighted to see the ground as good as it was here today,' said winning trainer Gordon Elliott. 'He can jump fences, and we can have a bit of fun with him. I don't think he wants real winter heavy ground but there are plenty of nice races to be won with him.
Summer Snow, a five-year-old grey mare trained by Peter Lawlor, is in the form of her life, and when Rory Cleary produced her late to land the Handicap, it was her third win in four starts since mid-May.
There's never a dull moment in Ballybrit and an eventful running of the Caulfield Industrial Handicap resulted in a dead-heat, with Sam Coen getting Ciaran Murphy's Castleheath up in the final stride to share the spoils with the Sean Byrne-trained and Shane Foley-ridden Helliogabalus.
