Spillane’s Tower

Spillane’s Tower ran out a good winner of the two-mile-three-furlong maiden hurdle at Naas last Saturday. Settled nicely by Luke Dempsey just behind the leader early on, Jimmy Mangan’s horse made nice progress around the home turn. He wasn’t great at the second last flight, which cost him momentum at a key stage in the race, but he was strong from there. He closed on the leaders on the run to the final flight, hit the front with 200 yards to run and stayed on strongly up the hill to win nicely from two useful novices in Franciscan Rock and Teuchters Glory, who stumbled on landing over the final flight, with the three of them clear.

It was a really likeable performance by JP McManus’ horse, who was racing for the first time since he ran in a maiden hurdle at Wexford in October. He finished second in that maiden hurdle, beaten just a head by Imagine, who finished second in the Grade 3 For Auction Hurdle on his next run. He made light of that absence, however, and he seemed to appreciate the step up in trip to two miles and three furlongs. The winning time was over 10 seconds faster than the time that Hands Of Gold clocked in winning the novices’ hurdle run over the same course and distance 35 minutes earlier. While that is a little misleading, given that they stood still for a while in the novices’ hurdle before they set off, Spillane’s Tower was still around three and a half seconds faster from the first flight to the winning line than the novices were. He is an exciting prospect, and he will be of interest wherever he goes next.
Naas, 11^th February 2023