Richie Kiely was seen to great effect when getting Missyspet up on the line at Clonmel last week, and he was back in the winners’ enclosure after another bumper success as Patsio justified strong support at Limerick.

The son of Moscow Society has been off the course for nearly six months since pulling a muscle when third at Galway but was obviously giving connections all the right signs as he was strongly supported here.

Available at 6/1 this morning and backed on course from 9/2 into 3/1, the Philip Fenton-trained gelding travelled smoothly to lead in the straight.

However Kiely needed to get serious inside the final furlong to hold off the challenge of Arctic Slipper, who unseated Paul Power on the way to the start, by half a length. Power picked up a one day suspension for using his whip with excessive frequency. Texas Tea was over five lengths further back in third, while 13/8 favourite Vedettariat faded tamely in the straight to finish seventh.

Fenton said, “He’d two good runs in the autumn but pulled a muscle after Galway and we stood him in for six weeks and only brought him back around Christmas time. He’s always been promising and has been working well.

“Regardless of whether he won today or not, we were going to leave him off after this for the summer.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Weekes