Veteran can Lay down the law

VETERAN Togoville might be capable of defying top-weight in the Bohan Hyland & Associates Handicap at the annual meeting on the beach in Laytown.

The eight-year-old grey, now trained by Anthony Mccann, appears to retain a lot of enthusiasm and, successful at this meeting in 2014, appeals on a tough card which sees the Melbourne 10 returning to County Meath in a bid to add to their successes in 2016 and last year.

Togoville triumphed twice at Dundalk last winter, scoring off 86 in December and off 90 in March.

Both wins were recorded over today’s trip, six furlongs. And, with Danny Mullins in the saddle, he should figure prominently in a race in which Dance Alone, trained on the beach by Damien English, looks the chief threat.

By my calculations, Melbourne 10 Racing will be responsible, through ownership or leasing arrangements, for ten of the meeting’s 58 runners.

And Waqaas, rated 90, looks the syndicate’s banker in the Hibernia Steel Amateur Race, in which he’ll be ridden by Lisa O’neill.

Formerly trained by Charles Hills and the winner of a Doncaster maiden as a two-year-old, he was placed in a competitive Ascot handicap last October and, in his only start this season, beat only one rival at the same track back in May. But, if he runs to anywhere his mark, he should score.

Waqaas is trained by Jamie Osborne, a member of the ‘10’, who might also click with Kody Ridge in the claimer.

The Johnny Murtaghtrained Prosecution – my idea of the likely winner of the opening maiden – has been leased for the day by the ‘10’, whose Rippling Waves looks the chief danger.

David Marnane, no stranger to success at Laytown, might land the finale with top-weight Little Clarinet, whose recent form includes two solid efforts behind Gopsies Daughter at the Curragh and, last time, a narrow defeat by one of today’s rivals Pillar at Bellewstown.

Donagh O’connor’s mount might reverse form with Pillar and keep at bay course winner My Good Brother.

double form at Naas on Tuesday – when Australia-bound US Navy Fag worked after racing with lead-horse Somerset Maugham before going into quarantine – Aidan O’brien bagged another brace of winners in Gowran Park last night.

Stepping-up in trip, Prepare For Battle (4/9 favourite) made all for an easy win in the Thomastown Maiden, giving Donnacha his eighth domestic success of the season.

Earlier, the Seamus Heffernan-ridden 14/1 shot Western Australia adopted similar front-running tactics to turn over odds-on favourite South Pacific in the two-year-old maiden.