Tai Sing Yeh's rider Colin Keane with trainer James MacAuley (left) and Jim Gough© Photo Healy Racing
Durable nine-year-old Tai Sing Yeh made all to win the concluding six-furlong handicap at 16/1.
One by one his eight rivals came off the bridle in the straight as the Exceed And Excel gelding maintained the gallop. Collective Power was last to challenge as they raced inside the final furlong but the winner went again to fend off that one by a length and a half.
Winning rider Colin Keane was completing a double after Cooler in the three-year-old maiden.
This was a ninth win on career start number 75 for Tai Sing Yeh and a mark of 72 is the highest he's won off. Having won six times for Johnny Levins, this was his second victory for James MacAuley after the 'king of the claimers' acquired him for 15,000 Euros at Limerick last summer.
Winning trainer James MacAuley said: "It was a welcome winner. The horses were working well at home, but I couldn't get a placed horse in December.
"We ended up checking everything and all their lungs were badly inflamed. We are literally just coming back, Colin said that lad had a blow as well. Everything we are running now is having a blow.
"We ended up putting a salt room in the other day to help pull the horses through it and clear their lungs. That can't get the credit just yet. They were fair sick without us really knowing - no coughing, no dirty noses or anything like that.
"We had a second and a third today as well, so it is grand to get one over the line.
"When Tai is right, he is right. He was the first horse we found to be sick, so he is the first horse back out of it. He was getting clean lung scans.
"He's a grand horse when he gets away in front. As Colin said, you can set your clock by him when he is right."
Quotes from Michael Graham
