Bay Of Freedom jumped the last better than Captain Bizarro and galloped away to take the spoils in Wexford's two and a half mile maiden hurdle.

Peter Fahey 's seven-year-old gelding grabbed hold of the lead from Nikki Steel on the run to the second last and boxed on well as Captain Bizarro tried to hunt him down.

Kevin Sexton got a good jump from him at the final hurdle as Captain Bizarro fiddled it. Bay of Freedom landed full of running as Sean Flanagan switched Captain Bizarro to the inner but he could make no impression as the winner, and top weight, who scored by three lengths.

Bay Of Freedom went off at 5/2 having drifted out from an opening show of 2/1. Captain Bizarro was all the rage at the track as he was backed down to 2/1 favourite from 4/1. Tailspin (9/2) was a further 12 lengths away in third under Andrew Lynch.

Peter Fahey said: "I'm delighted as he lost his way a bit last season. His owner Paul Leech and his wife Kim are based in Boston and they came over especially to see him run today. He had great bumper form last season and just lost his way over hurdles. I think he has got his jumping together a bit more.

"It wasn't the strongest of races and he'll have to improve a bit but hopefully he will go on. We will probably tip away in handicaps with him over the summer and go novice chasing with him next year.

"He actually got through that ground, that's as heavy as he'd ever want it. Early on I never thought he'd go on that ground. I wouldn't have even considered running him on it.

"We ran him around Tipperary recently in a schooling race and he handled it well and when Paul had planned to come over here we said we would chance it and it worked out great."

Additional reporting by Donal Murphy