Cool Vixen and Niall McCullagh beating stablemate Punita Arora© Photo Healy Racing
Jessica Harrington continued a remarkable recent run of success with her two-year-old fillies when saddling a 1-2 in the Foran Equine Irish EBF Auction Maiden at Naas.
The dual-purpose Moone trainer has her Flat team in red-hot form at present, and was making it 14 winners in the space of a fortnight with incredibly eight of those victories recorded by juvenile fillies. Cool Vixen was available at 8/1 earlier in the day but the Dandy Man newcomer was well-backed to go off the 3/1 favourite in this 15-runner event.
Niall McCullagh, who has also enjoyed a great run in recent weeks following a slow start to the season, had her up with the pace throughout before taking control from the furlong marker.
She came home two and a half lengths ahead of another Harrington debutante Punita Arora with Charlie Bassett a further length and three quarters away in third.
Jessica Harrington said, “She ran well in a barrier trial here and Niall said she knew what she was doing. The barrier trials are a great help, and the little bit of rain just took the sting out of the ground which probably helped the two of them.
“In the spring we thought we had a nice bunch, and then they took a bit of a dip when the weather was bad at the beginning of May. We had to sit and wait with them and now they have come back.
“The colts need to pull their socks up now! I’ve only had a few of them placed and they need to start to win.”