Jim Bolger’s Godolphin owned Dubai Sand led home a maidens 1-2 when gaining his first career win at Leopardstown today, landing the Listed TheTote.com Eyrefield Stakes under the trainer’s stable jockey Kevin Manning.

Both Dubai Sands and eventual runner-up Diodorus were each unsuccessful in six previous maiden starts (two and four runs respectively) but today the pair got the better of winning opponents, with Dubai Sands battling gamely to hold on for a half a length win.

Bolger later commented “he’s a nice staying two-year-old and is basically a middle distance horse, so it’s good that he could do that over a mile on goodish ground as we have something to play with.

“We were restricted in the latter part of the season with going and were finding it hard to get good ground and with all due respect to Dundalk, we didn’t want to go on the sand.

“Hopefully he’ll be back here for the Derrinstown Trial.”

By Tom Weekes, quotes from Gary Carson