Lightening Fast (Colin Keane) beats Gino Severini (Chris Hayes)© Photo Healy Racing
Colin Keane rode his eighth winner in four days when completing a Navan double aboard Lightening Fast in the Blackwater Handicap.
On his handicap debut the Qatar Racing Limited-owned Frankel colt found his niche to shed the maiden tag at the fifth time of asking.
After his seasonal reappearance just over a fortnight back, Lightening Fast was sent off the 11/4 favourite for this mile assignment. Gino Severini was shaded for favouritism at 3/1. In his first-time cheek-pieces the Fozzy Stack runner was the one to give Lightening Fast most to do but the latter had the edge by a length and a quarter at the line.
They left Elusive Beauty three and three parts of a length back in third.
Winning trainer Ger Lyons said: "It's nice, we trained the dam (Lightening Pearl). We thought last year that he was that type of horse and Colin rode him in Naas and said to bring him back to a mile. He has pace for the mile and better ground and then this race just fell.
"It's nice to win your maiden before you do things like this but with the prize money on offer today (29,500 to the winner) you are breaking your maiden for that prize money. It's not to be sniffed at. The race just cut up nicely for him.
"A mile and a quarter he'll get. He loves the good ground. Anywhere between eight and ten furlongs we'll be campaigning him and we hope he progresses into a Listed-type horse for the dam. I think he has to improve significantly to do that.
"Everything just fell right for us today but it's nice to be able to cash in."
The earlier Colin Keane winner on this programme was Pillar in the 5.55.
(MG & EM)
