Champion Hurdle and Champion Chase winner Colm Murphy bowed out of the training ranks at Gowran today as his final runner Black Zambezi finished fourth in the Kilkenny River Court Hotel Maiden Hurdle.

Black Zambezi, a 16/1 chance, was in contention entering the home straight but failed to pick up in the closing stages for a well held fourth place finish.

Murphy, the trainer of Brave Inca and Big Zeb, recently announced his decision to retire citing financial reasons and said “we’ve been so fortunate and it’s (racing) been so good to us and you’ll miss these days. It’s nice to have done what we’ve done and at the moment I’ve no regrets on the decision.

“We’ve had a phenomenal time of it with some very good horses and have had some fantastic owners but we just don’t have the numbers we used to have and don’t have the high profile horses and you need those to be viable.

“We’re fortunate where we are in a great position to make that decision. We’ll sit down and see but we have plenty pokers in the fire and there will be plenty going on at home with young horses and it’s another side to the business. We won’t be going anywhere and it’s onwards on upwards now.

Murphy’s final winner was Killiney Court at Ballinrobe in August.

By Tom Weekes