Sweet victory for Dawson on Apples

Curragh apprentice Ben Dawson partnered his first winner when making all aboard Candy Apples in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Race at Cork.

The five-furlong juvenile winners’ race appeared a straight forward task for Expedition with the race reduced to just three runners due to the rain-softened ground.

The Aidan O’Brien-trained colt was sent off at the prohibitive odds of 2/11 in the absence of both Fast In The Wind and Muscle Beach but racing is often not that simple.

Dawson (20), who is apprenticed to winning trainer Patrick Prendergast and has been second a number of times this season, bounced the Footstepsinthesand filly out in front and she had the hot-favourite in trouble well over a furlong out.

The 4/1 chance kept on strongly to score by four lengths, with the only other runner Primrose Hill never involved another 11 lengths adrift in third.

Prendergast said, “I took a chance running her but it worked out well, and I even thought she had a chance with the other two in the race. She was getting 15lb on this ground and she never runs a bad race.

“She was going to go to the Horses In Training Sale but she’s turning into a little cheque machine and we’re getting fond of her so she might not go.

“She is 100% genuine but we put blinkers on her just to carry Ben. They were more for the jockey than the horse!”

Additional reporting by Thomas Weekes