Noel Kennedy recorded his first winner on the track for a number of years when his Starling Force came home a two length winner of the finale on the card at Gowran Park this afternoon, the Kilkenny (Pro/Am) Flat Race.

The 3/1 second favourite was well backed from his morning price of 11/2 and Roger Quinlan sent the winner to the front from over 4 furlongs out and he ran on gamely to beat Carrig Millie with the newcomer Shays River a further eight lengths back in third.

A representative of the winning trainer said after the race, ‘He was entitled to win that after Aupcharlie’s run at Cheltenham (finished third in Cheltenham Bumper) and he will probably go to Punchestown now’.

The well backed 13/8fav Cairdin was in trouble from a long way out and finished tailed off. His rider John Thomas McNamara, said his mount lost all action during the race.