Ancient Spirit (right) beats Buckhurst (centre)© Photo Healy Racing
Jessica Harrington provided the highlight of the day at Navan today as the Classic winning trainer completed a Listed races-double in the Heritage Stakes when Ancient Spirit
Trainer Harrington had earlier registered a 1-2 in the half-hour earlier Listed Salsabil Stakes as her Silence Please (under Tom Madden) beat stablemate One Voice by a nose.
Half an hour later the Judge was again called to split the first two horses, with that same nose winning margin adjudged to have split winner Ancient Spirit from runner-up Buckhurst
Ancient Spirit's jockey Shane Foley was on board nose runner-up One Voice in the earlier Listed race but was nonetheless completing a double on the day, as Ancient Spirit's win followed up his earlier success on the Ger O'Leary trained Blastofmagic
Following the latest win, Kate Harrington, representing her mother, stated “we couldn't be happier with him. He was unlucky at the end of last year to get beat and it's great that's he's come out and done that today. He really battled.
“He's learning to do things right now. Shane jumped out and kept him out to let him relax in his own time. I think he'll get a lot of confidence from today.
“He has a few entries and I'll let mum, Michael (Donohoe) and Mr Zhang have the conversation about where they are going to go.
“He's very versatile and I think he'll go on any ground. He's just a good solid horse and a exciting, fun horse to have for all those group and listed races.
“He could be anything if he keeps improving like he has.”
Quotes from Gary Carson
