Versatile The Shunter adds another string to his bow

Trainer Emmet Mullins had a strong hand in the concluding 1m5f maiden and the market spoke strongly in favour of The Shunter (7/4 into 5/6 fav) in preference to stablemate The Gossiper

The result reflected the betting moves as The Shunter, patiently handled by Simon Torrens after being a little slowly away, made good headway to lead over two furlongs out. Soon ridden clear, he stayed on to win by four and a quarter lengths from Beautiful Chaos with Advantage Point another six lengths away in third.

Morning favourite The Gossiper, 9/4 out to 10/3 on course, finished fifth.

A highly progressive, money-spinning jumper in the season before last, The Shunter was having his first run under Flat rules.

Grand National-winning trainer Mullins said: “He’s a very versatile horse and is the gift that keeps on giving!

"It’s not often you see nine-year-olds win Flat maidens on their first attempt, so he’s opened up another door and I suppose towards the backend of the season we might look towards staying Flat handicaps and hopefully he can be competitive in them

“He’s got a great constitution and you’d forgive any horse one bad run. At Cheltenham (pulled up in the Coral Cup), with the weather that day and so on, we never got to the bottom of that run but he’s shown no ill-effects today.

“Bar that one run, he hasn’t really let us down any day.

“The other horse (The Gossiper, fifth) had been off for a good spell of time since Galway last year and probably needed it. He’ll come on for it a good bit and hopefully he’ll be one to look forward to again during the summer. He’ll go over hurdles at some stage in the summer."