Sleeping is on the improve

Out of luck earlier on the card with the well-backed Pirita (fourth in the opener), Dermot Weld and Pat Smullen struck with Sleeping Beauty in the Follow Us On Facebook Fillies & Mares Maiden at Fairyhouse.

By Oasis Dream out of the 2006 Irish Guineas heroine, Nightime, Sleeping Beauty got the better of the front-runner, Pearl Turn (deposed Sleeping Beauty of favouritism) inside the final hundred yards to prevail by a length.

There was money for Jim Bolger's experienced Teoirim and Kevin Prendergast's Danseur De Feu but they had to settle for third and fourth places.

Weld commented of his mother, Gita's homebred: "She did what you'd expect her to do. As a stakes placed filly we'll now target a nice stakes race with her.

"She'll go for further – probably a mile and a half.

"She's improving and handled that ground although she wouldn't want it any firmer." (AM & EM)