Tom Lacey celebrated his debut win in Full Circle Series Final Handicap Hurdle

On the first day of the Punchestown Festival, Tune In A Box struck the raiding party a blow early by giving trainer Tom Lacey his first winner on Irish soil in the Blood-Stock.com Complete Circular Series Final Handicap Hurdle.

The Herefordshire handler entered three runners in the €80,000 race, Montregard, the 9-2 favourite owned by JP McManus among them.

Tune In A Box would have won his last four races in Britain if not for a narrow defeat by a head at Ffos Las on his penultimate start. Despite having much longer odds than his stablemate (16-1), he ran out  decisively by eight lengths under Richard Patrick.

At 50-1, Quest With Speed finished in second place, followed by Montregard, who was half a length behind.

Lacey said: “I was watching Montregard throughout the race but I kept casting my eye back to Tune In A Box and I saw him travelling everywhere. I thought Montregard would close him down but he didn’t. I thought Montregard would be the horse to beat but Tune In A Box is a horse that keeps surprising us. It was a lad who does all my form work that highlighted the series to me. As soon as I read the conditions, I thought it was ideal for a few of those in the barn. We highlighted them and hit the qualifiers quite strong. We won two and were second in another. Where can you go for an €80,000 pot with those ratings? There are just no races for them for that prize fund, so it would be crazy not to target it.”