Dreamer shows his true worth at 33s

Plenty of decent horses have carried the Desertmore prefix down the years and another one of them, 'Dreamer,' stepped up on previous form to take the Marthas Bar Maiden Hurdle at odds of 33/1 under Conor Brassil at Tramore.

The last hurdle had to be omitted here after the early fall taken by Tikkanen Express (Phillip Enright stood down for the day) but in the end the Denis Leahy-trained Desermore Dream held the favourite, Henry Howard by a length and a half.

"He is a horse that we always thought a lot of, but he has been disappointing. The day he was third in his point-to-point we thought that he was going to be okay and that he'd improve, but he disappointed and disappointed. I didn't know what the hell was wrong with him, so we basically trained him from the field," explained Leahy.

"In Killarney it looked he was going to win turning in, but he didn't get home. I just thought the same might happen here, but thankfully he kept going.

"I had a couple of quid on him at 160/1 on Betfair this morning.

"I'm based in Charleville, we are basically a pre-training operation. Brendan is a very loyal owner from Ballincollig in Cork. He is a point-to-point man through and through and so I had to convince him to let this lad run. He loves his point-to-pointers so a two mile hurdler is the opposite of what he ever had.

"If he didn't perform today I don't know where we were going to go with him."

K.C. Sexton, rider of Golan Diamond trained by J.R.Finn, reported to the Clerk of Scales that his mount finished lame.

The Stewards requested a report from Denis Leahy, trainer as to the apparent improvement in form of Desertmore Dreamer (FR), placed first, as compared with its recent form. The trainer reported that his charge disappointed on his last two starts when failing to finish well on both occasions. He added that the horse is a handy type who seemed to relish today's sharp, easier track.Having considered the evidence the Stewards noted the explanation offered.

(DM & EM)