Burnt Sugar blows away rivals in finale

Burnt Sugar made it three wins for English-trained runners on day one of Irish Champions Weekend at Leopardstown when recording an impressive victory in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Sovereign Path Handicap.

The Roger Fell-trained gelding showed a tremendous burst of acceleration on the outer to cut down his 17 rivals in this 150,000 euro event, leading 150 yards out for Declan McDonogh to score by a convincing two lengths. Silverkode took the runner-up spot, with well-backed 4/1 favourite Withernsea a further length back in third and Have A Nice Day completing the places in fourth.

Fell said, “He won quite easy and I’m quite shocked he won that easy. He likes soft ground and I was a bit worried as it seemed like good ground out there. I was talking to Frank (Gillespie) who owns The Grey Gatsby and he said it was dead and he’d like it and he did like it.

“It’s a nice pot and we’ll have to see if we can win a Group 3 now. That’ll be the icing on the cake! Declan said he’s definitely a Group 3 horse.

“Caspian Prince won a Listed race for me over here before at Dundalk.” Decorated Knight earlier led the way for the cross channel challengers when taking the Champion Stakes for Roger Charlton, while the David O’Meara-trained Suedois was also on the mark in the Boomerang Stakes.