Grosvenor Square strides out well in Galway sunshine

The 6/4 favourite Grosvenor Square gave Aidan O'Brien a tenth win in the last thirteen runnings of the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden at a sunny Galway.

The winner tracked Gandolfo and was pushed along two furlongs out. He was ridden to lead inside the final 150 yards by Killian Hennessy and stayed on well to account for Naturally Nimble by two and a-quarter lengths.

Carrying the colours of Michael Tabor, who owns him along with Derrick Smith, Mrs John Magnier and Westerberg, the son of Galileo is well entered up in Pattern races over a mile in the coming weeks.

Stable representative Chris Armstrong said: "He is a lovely horse, is only starting to develop and was just right for starting here. Aidan thought it would be a nice introduction to get him started but obviously they went steady which wouldn't suit.

"He is a brother to Santiago and on pedigree and home work he will be a lovely middle-distance horse next year. We'll step him up into one of the group races now and everything is building to next year.

"It took Killian a long time to pull him up and he was only doing his best work once he hit the line."

He added "we've started manys the good horse here including Kyprios, and Navy Seal won here at the last meeting (in August). It is a great introduction for them, especially the middle-distance horses, coming down a hill on sharp bends and then coming back up the hill. It brings them along mentally and is good to get runs under their belts at this time of year.

"Seamus (Heffernan) has three suspensions in a row so is off until the end of this month and with Ryan (Moore) in England, it is nice to get Killian another winner. All the riders are in and working hard and in fairness to Aidan he looks after all of them."

Quotes from Tom Weekes