Weld's Harbour Wind impresses in Navan romp

Harbour Wind made just about all of the running, staying on powerfully under Chris Hayes to easily win the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Race at Navan.

The Dermot Weld trained gelding had made a winning racecourse debut at Cork in May, before finding only the 103 rated Pivotal Trigger too strong at Roscommon on his second start.

Intent on making this a proper test of stamina, Hayes sent the Moyglare Stud Farm owned son of Nathaniel straight into the lead, setting steady fractions for the first mile or so.

Moving off a straight line to head to the favoured stands rail early in the straight, Hayes found a more than willing partner when asking for an effort over a furlong out.

The Weld trained three-year-old powered clear up the hill on the rain softened ground to win easily by seven lengths.

The reins broke on the other 15/8jf Dutch Gold before halfway.

Dermot Weld, “He did it well. It was a funny sort of race as I think something happened to Colin Keane’s reins and you can’t read too much into the distances as you can get extreme distances on testing ground.

“The one thing we didn’t know was would he handle the ground and he handled it well. He came up the hill well.

“We’ll take it from there and see how he progresses. We have no definite plans.”

Additional reporting by Alan Magee