Champion Keane scores 20/1 American success

Colin Keane doesn't ride many 20/1 winners but the Champion Jockey was given some of the credit from winning on trainer Noel Meade's Art Of America at those odds in the www.gowranpark.ie Handicap at Gowran today.

Art Of America today made much of the running and, in the end, held on for a short-head success over Centrifolia to provide the son of American Post with his first win in ten starts.

Keane's post-race appraisals are often interesting and having reported that Champion Trainer Willie Mullins' True Self “could improve because she had a little blow” when winning at Cork on October 3, today's winning trainer Meade said “Colin said the last day he rode him he wasn’t fit and to put blinkers on him.”

First-time blinkers were indeed applied today and Meade added “he wants a cut in the ground and I’d say he can go a bit further.

“He’s not very big but he jumps very well so I’d say there is a chance he’ll jump hurdles at some stage as well.”

Quotes from Alan Magee