Raptor continues Mullins’s good run

Raptor, a wide-margin winner at Punchestown in May, provided champion trainer Willie Mullins with his fifth winner in three days when justifying odds-on favouritism in the Audrey McGrath Memorial Chase in Wexford yesterday.

Ridden by Ruby Walsh, the 2/5 shot edged ahead after the second last and stayed on to beat Great Oak by a length and three-quarters, prompting his rider to admit: “There aren’t enough fences for him to jump out there, and they’re not big enough for him. Basically, he’s not a two-miler. So he did well to win.”

Mullins and Walsh were expected to complete a double with favourite Gagewell Flyer in the Tuskar Rock Beginners Chase But he had to give best to the Dessie Hughes-trained Raz De Maree, ridden by Bryan Cooper.