Could that smile be any wider! Colin Keane is rewarded after his double© Photo Healy Racing
The well-backed Snowmane ran out a comfortable winner of the Albany Handicap at Down Royal, providing Ger Lyons and Colin Keane with a double on the card (won the second with The Ice Meister .
The son of Galileo (two winners at Gowran) opened at 5/1 on-course before backed into 11/4 at the off.
Making his handicap debut and dropping back in trip to a mile and a quarter he broke away smartly and settled in second.
He was ridden along over three furlongs out, but it wasn’t until the furlong pole that he finally got to the front, going on from there to score by an easy four and a quarter lengths.
Teorim came through to take second at 12/1 under Kevin Manning for Jim Bolger while the 5/2 favourite Henson could only manage a disappointing fourth under Fran Berry for David Marnane.
Ger Lyons said afterwards: "We gelded him since the last day. He ran with the handbrake off in Navan. We are very happy with him. He has ability and hopefully he will go on from it.
"We'll keep him handicapping until we can't."
"Two winners, two seconds and two thirds from six runners, you can't argue with that.
"There was probably a little bit of a hard luck story in the Oaks and beaten a head and half a length in the Derby. It's a shame we didn't get the big pots, there'll be other days and they are nice horses to go to war with."
Additional reporting by Michael Graham
