Top apprentice jockey Colin Keane partnered his eighth winner of the new Flat season when steering the Tom McCourt trained bargain buy Local Flier to win the Fairyhouse Supporting Tattersalls International Horse Trials And Country Fair Handicap at Fairyhouse today.

Keane, runner-up in last year's Apprentice Championship, kept the winner going in the closing stages to hold off the late challenge of Jackie Ellis by a neck.

McCourt later stated “Colin said she was just doing enough in front and it might now be time to put a set of blinkers on her. I don't think she's ungenuine but she watches everything and might just need some assistance.

“She was a real bargain and only cost 1,600Gns in Doncaster (last November, having won a maiden) and if we could get a few more like that, it would keep us ticking over! We'll tip away with her but I'd say six furlongs is probably far enough for her.”

By Thomas Weekes, quotes from Gary Carson