Lia Fail springs a surprise for Mulvany

Having shown promise on her first two starts, 25/1 chance Lia Fail left behind a poor run at Listowel to win the Freixenet Pro Median Auction Maiden.

Having tracked the leaders on the inner, the daughter of Inns Of Court got a nice split after the elbow to make her challenge and edged to the front in the final strides to beat Harry The Rogue by a neck.

Sean Bird was in the saddle for owner/trainer Michael Mulvany who remarked: "We were a bit disappointed the last day. As I said, there was no explanantion for it and we were expecting her to be there or thereabouts the last day.

"We brought her to Dundalk the other day and she worked very well, so we were coming in with some confidence.

"She was good and game, and hopefully she will go on from that.

"Sean works with me and I'm delighted for him, he loses his 10lb claim now. He joined us early on in the year and we've given him a few more rides. The 10lb certainly helped and he is getting better all the time."

When asked about horses for Bellewstown, he replied: "We haven't planned anything as yet, we were actually thinking about it for this one! That will be the end of the maiden so we will work from here.

"We have given a few horses a break when the ground was real firm and we are aiming a lot of them at Galway."

Quotes from Michael Graham