Foley takes the winning 'spare' on Spelga

Spelga gained a first win at the tenth attempt at Dundalk today as the Michael Halford trained, Paul Rooney owned gelding landed the opening division of the Irishinjuredjockeys.com Handicap under jockey Shane Foley.

The four year old son of Sir Percy had failed in his six previous handicap starts and while his rating had fallen from 61 to 49, he did show promise when finishing fourth on his first run on the all-weather last month. Today Spelga scored a half-length win under jockey Foley, who was standing in for Halford's first choice jockey Ronan Whelan.

Halford later said “he’s a slow learner like myself!

“He lacked enough weight for Ronan (Whelan) to ride him and Shane (Foley) has been lucky in those colours before and found a lovely slot there from a wide draw.

“That’s his trip and he handles the ground so we’ll keep him tipping away here over the winter.

“He’d get a mile and a half if he needed to and hopefully we’ll have a bit of fun with him.”

Quotes from Alan Magee