Verdant Place (right) and Simon Torrens © Photo Healy Racing
Verdant Place showed good reserves of stamina when staying on strongly to justify 3/1 favouritism in the 3m Irish Stallion Farms EBF Handicap Chase at Navan.
The Pat Foley-trained gelding won twice over hurdles at Punchestown last year and showed the benefit of an outing last month to open his account here over fences.
The six-year-old gelding was patiently ridden by Simon Torrens and made headway travelling well early in the straight.
He was pushed along by Torrens to lead approaching the last and kept on well on the run-in to beat the always prominent Salmanino by a length and a half. Shajak kept on one paced a further four and a half lengths back in third.
Foley said, "It was brilliant to get it. Fair play to Simon, that's his third win on him now.
“He's probably not the most straight-forward horse in the world but Simon really knows him inside out. I don't tell him anything, away he goes.
“He was good today. His jumping probably still has to improve a little bit, he's not the slickest over them but you could ask no more. Three miles around Navan takes a bit of jumping.
“He's won over two-seven over hurdles and three miles is probably his trip. If the ground was softer you could drop him back a bit more but definitely on that ground he needs three miles.
“He won't be running over Christmas and we'll find something similar in the New Year.”
Quotes by Gary Carson
