Lucky Road strikes again for in-form Cromwell

Gavin Cromwell continued his rich vein of form when sending out Lucky Road to take the Dawn Hi & Lo Milk Handicap Hurdle at Killarney.

The County Meath handler has been saddling a veritable torrent of winners in recent weeks, and he was represented here by two recent winners. Peaches And Cream who has been put up 18lb in future handicaps after a facile victory at Downpatrick on Monday, was installed the 5/4 favourite but he could only manage fifth as Cromwell scored with Lucky Road.

The 7/2 chance had also been given a hefty rise (15lb) by the handicapper for a convincing win at Sligo last Sunday, and he had to work hard to follow up here under a mandatory 5lb penalty.

Conor McNamara was again in the plate and, despite a few slight mistakes by the gelding early in the straight, he got a good tune out of the four-year-old to just deny Give Battle by half a length. Elusive Don held every chance finishing another length and a quarter away in third.

Cromwell said, “I had to run the two of them under a penalty as they were going up so much. It was a game performance as I thought he was going to be beaten and he had to dig deep.

“It’s going to be hard for both of them after this but they were both cheap horses out of the August Sale last year, and hopefully they might win again somewhere.”