Diamond shines from the front

Deons Diamond was yet another to make all at Sligo this afternoon, with the four-year-old comfortably accounting her older rivals in the Brenda Anderson Memorial Beginners Chase.

Second on her sole point-to-point start when trained by Shane Byrne, the Diamond Boy chestnut was successful over flights at Ballinrobe last month, since finishing fourth at the Co Mayo venue.

Making her racecourse debut over fences this afternoon, the Philip Rothwell-trained victor was sent off a 2/1 chance under James O'Sullivan for the Erris Coast Syndicate.

Travelling best when pressed on the approach to the straight, she was ridden away from the last and came home five-lengths clear of Jenny Flex (8/1) and Jack Kennedy in second.

Settled behind the leader under Rachael Blackmore, Potters Party (13/8f) crashed out at the eighth, with both horse and rider escaping unscathed.

"With her filly's allowance and the four-year-old allowance, she was getting huge allowances there," Rothwell remarked.

"She's rated 109 over hurdles and she probably didn't even need to run to that to do what she did there.

"It'll be interesting to see if she has a lower chase rating than her hurdle mark even after that.

"She's been brilliant, she's won a maiden hurdle and now a beginners' chase and we only have her around three months.

"We'll probably give her a little break now and bring her back for mares' handicaps after Christmas. She's probably not for stepping up to novice class yet.

"She ran a stormer the last day in Ballinrobe but it was easy to see that her handicap rating was as much as what she was, so getting all that weight here today, I thought it was an obvious race to run in.

"Her jumping was good, she had jumped well in a point-to-point for Shane Byrne. He had her really well schooled and we didn't have to do much other than get her here in one piece."

Additional reporting by Mark Nunan