Wee Charlie makes a winning start for O'Leary

Wee Charlie raced right away from the field in the closing stages of the angloprinters.ie Handicap Hurdle at Galway for a snug success. Whatsafellatodo put in a game effort off the front in this extended two-mile contest, but an absolute plethora of horses held claims approaching the final flight. Burru was his closest challenger in jumping it, however, jumped the last well on the inner and soon took aim at lead by the furlong pole.

He scooted through to lead 150 yards out and drew clear in the final 100 yards to score by two lengths at 10/1. In For The Night (10/1) took the runner-up berth, half a length in front of Gekkota (16/1). Whatafellatodo dropped to fourth, but gave his each-way backers a dividend at 7/1.

Michael O'Sullivan said: "I hadn't ridden the horse so spoke to Darragh O'Keeffe (jockey) regarding him and all credit to Ger (O'Leary, trainer), who is an absolute gentleman. I'm delighted to ride a winner for him, his horses are in some order and Dean (Curran) and Mark (Davison) are doing a great job.

"It was more a fact-finding mission and obviously was injured in transit where he was withdrawn from Cartmel (August 26), so it was his first run for Ger.

"He travelled very sweetly, jumped everywhere for me and while we got into trouble at the second-last and I was cursing myself, we probably ended up winning too far. He bolted up."

Wee Charlie won a handicap hurdle at Naas in March last year for his former trainer, Tom Gibney.

Additional reporting by Tom Weekes