The Johnny Murtagh trained Maximus Daia caused a 25/1 upset to win the TicketSales Online corkracecourse.ie Maiden at Cork today on his third start, under jockey Connor King.

Today the son of Holy Roman Emperor raced prominently throughout and in the end battled well to see off the challenge of Pecheurs De Perles by a length and a half.

Afterwards Murtagh stated “I’m glad he won because it confirmed what we thought of him at home but I was worried after his Dundalk runs. I was sure he’d win a maiden but obviously he didn’t handle the surface at Dundalk.

“Coming here I thought the ground would probably be a bit too heavy fro him and while he is not big, is very strong.”

By Tom Weekes