Steps In The Sand takes her chance & completes hat-trick

Written by Donal Murphy

Getting in as first reserve, Steps In The Sand made the most of her opportunity in the Hop House 13 Handicap.

After wins at Bellewstown and Ballinrobe respectively, the Ciaran Murphy-trained six-year-old was completing a hat-trick this evening, but proved easy-to-back.

Drifting from early shows of 8/1, the Footstepsinthesand bay eventually went off a 22/1 chance in the colours of the Zoom Buddies Syndicate.

Settled behind the leaders by Patrick McGettigan, the 62-rated victor improved into second from the furlong pole and was soon ridden in pursuit of the leader.

Getting to the front inside the final 100 yards, she ultimately came home two-lengths to the good, with the front-running Coulstys Way (18/1) having to settle for second under Robert Whearty.

After meeting with some trouble in running, Lagoon Nebula (14/1) was another length-and-a-quarter back, with Beautiful Chaos (16/1) fourth.

Bidding to follow-up on yesterday's win, Glenroyal was backed as if defeat was out of the question and went to post the 10/11 favourite (from 2s early) under Dylan Browne McMonagle.

Still in with every chance on the outer approaching the straight, he ultimately faded tamely and finished second last.

"George Murphy rang me on the way home yesterday evening and said 'we're not running if you want to run'. I appreciated the early call, we got plenty of notice," Murphy, who was registering his second winner of the week, commented.

"We were hoping we'd get in. There were a lot of boxes ticked for her today. She had a lovely draw, we had the man that had won twice on her before taking off 7lb, and the ground had tightened up nicely.

"It was drying all the time and that's what she needs. She's probably at her best on that sort of ground.

"We were really impressed with her the last day, she won over a mile-and-a-half which is probably as short as she'd want.

"We felt coming today that she was probably better than she was going to Ballinrobe, for whatever reason.

"We knew she'd handle the hill and everything. Being on the inside was looking a bit tricky at one point but Paddy was very cool on her, he's very good value for his 7lb.

"He's going places that young man and we're happy to have him.

"She's going to go up in grade again. We were going to go for a '60' in Sligo but the handicapper left us with no option but to come here as he gave us 61 after the last day. That worked out nicely.

"She's going to still be in the 70 bracket and she'll go for something like this again, maybe even over two miles. She still has the hurdles option as well.

"She'll be running away while the ground is decent, until the winter time."