Ol Man Dingle brings up his hat-trick in good style Ol Man Dingle belied his 20/1 odds to post a good victory in the novice handicap hurdle at Leopardstown. Eoin Griffin's charge was very easy to back this morning despite being on a hat-trick after successes in Clonmel and Wexford. He skipped along at the head of affairs approaching the home bend, on this his handicap debut, and had the favourite Taponthego scrubbed along in second on the run to the last. The five-year-old gelding was far from fluent in jumping it, but that didn't impede his momentum as he rolled home by four and three-quarter lengths. Taponthego (11/8f) had to settle for second and was seven-and-a-half-lengths clear of Young Lucy (5/1). Griffin said:“Brian (Caherty, owner) has a big crowd down with him from Armagh and I’m delighted for him. “We had him kind of laid out for this race. He hadn’t run for a while as we gave him a little break. You are always a little bit apprehensive if you have done enough or given him too much time off, but I couldn’t have been happier with him coming here. “For the first mile I was worried that he was too fresh, but once Ricky got him out he settled and I’m delighted with that performance. He galloped on well and Ricky said if something came to him, he would have gone on again. “This was his mid-season target, so we’ll have to reassess things from here.” Additional reporting by Alan Magee
