66/1 Second stuns punters in Navan opener

You could hear a pin drop, apart from a few chuckles from bookmakers' pitches, after the opener at Navan as Any Second Now recorded a massive shock when scoring on debut in the Kells Maiden Hurdle.

A total of 28 runners went to post but punters only wanted to know about two of them as French import C'est Jersey and Cork runner-up Chirico Vallis ominated the market.

The 11/10 joint favourites took a major hand in proceedings with Ruby Walsh doing really well to stay aboard C'est Jersey following a blunder at the penultimate flight.

However Ian McCarthy was sitting motionless in behind on Any Second Now, and the Ted Walsh-trained 66/1 chance cruised through between horses on the run-in.

The outsider recorded a facile two and a half lengths victory, with C'est Jersey just touching off his fellow joint favourite for the runner-up spot.

The front-running Black Key made a promising debut eventually having to settle for fourth.

The victory had Walsh reminiscing about former stablestar Rince Ri who won the same race on his debut back in 1997.

Walsh said, "He reminds me of Rince Ri. He won a maiden hurdle here at this meeting like that - he bolted in. If he turns out as good as him I'd be delighted.

"It's a pleasant surprise and he's a nice horse. I actually rode the great grand-dam Hourly Rate.

"He done it nicely. I thought he was a nice horse and he'd run well but I didn't think he was forward enough to beat the fancied horses.

"He jumped well and travelled well. It looked a hot race but he made small work of them anyway. I'll talk to Frank and JP now and see what they want to do. He'll probably go for a winners of one somewhere.

"He's a lovely big chasing type and looks like a half decent horse. On his first run you wouldn't expect that. Katie said we should run him in a bumper but I wanted to go down the hurdling route."

Wow - how about this for a finishing effort at @NavanRacecourse? Not a bad price either... 66/1! https://t.co/DVQfjALGzw

— At The Races (@AtTheRaces) December 10, 2016

(GC & AM)