Elliott nears century with Down Royal double

Gordon Elliott is closing in on a century of winners this season and completed a double at Down Royal today as his Runfordave landed the concluding Daily Mirror (Pro-Am) Bumper to complete a double on the day for the trainer and register his sixth win in two days at the venue.

Runfordave was steered to victory by Luke McGuinness, himself also successful on Elliott’s Hardline at Thurles on Thursday.

Elliott has now trained 90 winners this season, 33 more than Champion Trainer Willie Mullins and following Runfordave’s success stated “he'll be a nice horse when he goes jumping hurdles but is only a baby.

"I'd say he's green more than anything and we'll probably go jumping hurdles with him now.

“That's his job done and it's good to have a couple of winners for the Sloans who are big sponsors (of the Grade 2 WKD Hurdle) up here.”

Regarding his sixth winner at the high profile two day Down Royal meeting, he said “it’s unbelievable. We had five last year and it's a meeting we like to have runners at. The ones we thought would win got beaten but that's racing - these are the meetings you want to have winners at.

"The northern tracks look after us very well so I try to support them as much as I can."

By Tom Weekes, quotes from Michael Graham