Friday 31st May
The most valuable handicap of the day, the £100,000 Betfred Nifty Fifty Handicap over 10 furlongs, went the way of Bolster (5-1) to bring up a 26-1 Ladies Day double for trainer Karl Burke.
Racing in the famous silks of Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum, the four-year-old Invincible Spirit colt made virtually all and held on well to win by three-quarters of a length from Paradias (18-1).
Karl Burke said: “I don’t like running two nice horses like that against each other, but they both want these conditions and this trip (Burke also saddled 9-2 Favourite Liberty who finished 7th).
“There’s hopefully a bit of warm weather coming round the corner, and if it dries up we’d have nowhere to go with them, so I had to let them take their chance.
“Thankfully Sheikh Mohammed Obaid was happy with that. Bolster has been in great form. Liberty Lane is a very good horse on his day but he just needs things to drop right for him. I’d say Bolster is a Group Three horse - that’s where we’ll go, but he wouldn’t want fast ground. We’ll have a good look for the autumn campaign for him.
“Both of them will have entries in the John Smith’s - well, maybe not Bolster now; I think the handicapper might have his cut at that - but Liberty Lane will be entered in the John Smith’s and if it came up right for him, that would be a nice race for him.”
Winning jockey Pierre-Louis Jamin said: “He’s a horse that always keeps himself to himself at home and doesn’t show a lot, but when he won the last day at Pontefract we were quite surprised the way he did it so easily, and I came here today hoping for a big run as well.
“Karl left it more or less up to me, but I thought if I could make the running and get an easy lead and kick off the bend, I thought he’d be hard to pass.
“I think he will progress. I hope he’s at least a Group Three horse; every time they came to him, he’d go again. These conditions are definitely what he wants - Good to Soft or Soft is perfect for him.”
