HE’S just saddled the longest priced winner in the history of the Galway Summer Festival, but local trainer Iggy Madden still has an itch to scratch.

The Castlegar based handler unloaded both barrels at Horse Racing Ireland over how he feels the small stables are being neglected by the sport’s governing body.

Madden’s initial reaction after 200/1 rank outsider Brave Crogha defied all expectations to land the closing bumper on day four of the Galway Festival was that he would quit the game altogether.

But the well-known haulage contractor is having a change of heart about walking away from racing, especially now that he has a potentially good horse on his hands.

“I was going to phase it [training] out by the end of the year as it costs so much money to train horses and it takes up a lot of time, my time, but friends are saying you have to stay at it now.”

Madden intends to keep going and could aim Brave Crogha at a winners’ bumper at the upcoming Listowel Festival after the rank outsider produced an eye-catching turn of foot up the hill to take the Guinness Time Flat Race under Aine O’Connor at Ballybrit.

The five-year-old was making a mockery of his previous form – Brave Crogha had been tailed off in a Ballinrobe bumper just eight days previously – but Madden had been hopeful of a much-improved showing on his home track.

A visit to Claregalway-based veterinary surgeon Philip McManus for a bout of acupuncture was central to the horse’s transformation. “He was hanging from having a sore back. He was full of energy but trying to run away from the pain.”

Pictured: 200/1 delight . . . Galway trainer Iggy Madden with jockey Áine O’Connor and stable lad Conor Heaney after Brave Crogha’s stunning bumper success at Ballybrit last Thursday. Photo: Iain McDonald.