Shark feasts on a Listowel double

Shark Hanlon capped a tremendous day for his stable by sealing a double when well-backed Murchu ridden by owner Paul McMahon won the bumper at Listowel.

"What a day!" exclaimed the trainer after Murchu added to Alfa Beat s Kerry National win.

"He's a nice horse and was a nice horse lat year. We let him off after his first run and he came back stronger."

"The owner only bought him a month ago. He will probably go for a winners' bumper at Cheltenham in October time."

The five-year-old gelding was 7/2 in the morning and went off 9/4 joint favourite. He won by an impressive seven-and-a-half lengths from the other joint favourite – Local Celebrity trained by Willie Mullins and ridden by Paddy Mullins. High Class Show who was backed from 14/1 to 8/1 on course took third, half-a-length away.

Meanwhile, aggregate figures for the bookmakers and the Tote were down from last year. Bookmakers took in 1,230,654 euro whereas last year's aggregate was 1,413,528 euro. This equates to a drop of 182,874 euro.

It was a similar story at the Tote. This year's figure of 320,179 euro was 49,577 euro lower than last year's 369,756 euro.

Michael Graham