Easy Game wins again

Easy Game sent champion jockey Paul Townend off on his holidays with consecutive wins in renewals of Listowel's John J. Galvin Chase today, registering a 17th career success for his owner Nick Peacock and trainer Willie Mullins.

Conceding weight to recent winner Jeremys Flame Aintree victor Dancing On My Own and front-runner Effernock Fizz the nine-year-old jumped with customary exuberance and shook off Dancing On My Own in the straight, scoring by three and a half lengths.

It was Easy Game's 13th chase win from 25 starts and Townend, who joins fellow professional jump jockeys on a month's holidays tomorrow, reported “he’s brilliant, isn’t he. They’ve done a great job placing him and he has a great appetite for racing.

“There definitely was greater strength in depth this year than last and it was tight enough on ratings. I jumped into the race probably sooner than I wanted to but I wasn’t disappointing him at that stage, and once he got on top, all I had to do was keep him up to his work.

“He doesn’t need a lot of encouragement to jump but you can trust him with your life now.

“It was a different story when he was a novice and was letting fly. You’d put anyone up on him now, he’s a great spin, and a joy to have anything to do with.”

The six-time champion, joint-leader with Patrick Mullins in the current campaign, added “he loves that ground and credit to the Listowel staff, it’s 25 degrees today and the ground is still safe at this time of the day. They’ve done a lot of work on it.”