Shadow Gate shows that class is permanent

Unlikely echoes of the Prix de l'Arc De Triomphe came through following the concluding Dundalk Light Up Your Night Race.

Pace-setter in the Longchamp highlight 12 days back, Ernest Hemingway looked like he could hold on from the front here to credit his pilot Anna O'Brien with her first winner.

However ten-year-old 25/1 outsider Shadow Gate (Declan McDonogh up), a son of White Muzzle, runner-up in the l'Arc in 1993, hadn't read the script.

Takashi Kodama 's charge came through inside the last to go on and comfortably prevail by two and a half lengths. Banna Boirche came home well to be two lengths back in third. Brendan Brackan the well-backed favourite, didn't see out his race as might have been expected and he ended up in sixth.

This was very much a Japanese success and Kodama said: "I got the horse in April. He was a bit stiff and he had joint and muscle problems.

"He had loads of small things wrong with him and I nearly gave up on him.

"In the last few weeks he started to pick up well and I was very happy with him.

"There is a listed race here in the middle of November and we'll try and run there. I'll have to talk to the owners.

"The idea is to look for a small place for him at stud somewhere. I trained Pop Rock to win at Galway and after he won there he went to stud in the Czech Republic."

Shadow Gate won the Group 1 Singapore Airlines International Cup at Kranji back in 2007 when under the care of Yukihiro Kato. (GC & EM)