Los Andes (white cap) and Shane Foley keep on well to deny Fernando Vichi (red and yellow)© Photo Healy Racing
The opening 2-y-o (colts and geldings) maiden produced a very tight finish as Los Andes (4/1) just held on to win by a nose from Fernando Vichi
Shane Foley ’s mount, a slow-starting fifth on debut at Leopardstown, was much sharper here and was prominent all the way.
Having shrugged off the challenge of 13/8 joint favourite Lust over a furlong out, the winner was strongly pressed by Donnacha O’Brien’s newcomer Fernando Vichi inside the final furlong but, with the run under his belt, just prevailed.
Lust finished third a place ahead of the other 13/8 joint favourite Brazil
Kate Harrington, daughter of, and assistant to, winning trainer Jessica Harrington remarked: “You'd have to be very happy with him. He did all his work very nicely at home but was a little bit disappointing the first day.
“He leaned a bit with Shane that day out of greenness. It was maybe partly my fault as well as all our horses run with Australian nosebands on them and he had some grass warts. They pushed on the noseband and he was running away from that.
“We took it off today and it worked the trick.
“He's a nice horse and has a few nice entries. He's growing a bit at the moment and you can see when the saddle is off him that he's a bit up behind.
“We'll give him a bit of time now and maybe mid-August we'll look for another race for him. A mile suits him well and it's nice to get a winner for (Breeders’ Cup Mile winner) Karakontie.”
Additional reporting by Gary Carson
