Mercury Lane gains deserved win for Nolan & Cooper

Mercury Lane gained a deserved first win for connections at Limerick today as the Paul Nolan trained, Bryan Cooper partnered gelding landed the Fedamore Maiden Hurdle as 4/7 favourite.

Just eight of the 18 horses completed in the three-miles contest which was run on very testing ground and in the end the son of Stowaway, who carried lifetime form-figures of '2-332-22' into today's race, stretched well clear of his rivals for a 28 lengths win.

Nolan is represented by Mrs Milner, a 12/1 chance for the Pertemps Final on Thursday, at this week's Cheltenham festival and following today's win jockey Cooper stated “he deserved that as he's run into some fairly all right types, including Velvet Elvis, who has won since and ran well at Navan yesterday when third.

“Cheekpieces sharpened him up but I'd imagine he'll be one for those competitive staying handicap chases in future. It's great that the (Nolan) horses are coming back into form.”