Voleuse De Coeurs hacks up at the Curragh© Photo Healy Racing
Voleuse De Coeurs showed herself to be a step ahead of the handicapper as she scored an emphatic win in the Hacketts Bookmakers Irish Cesarewitch at the Curragh.
With Pat Smullen riding in Canada this evening, Leigh Roche took the ride on Dermot Weld’s three-year-old daughter of Teofilo and she sluiced up by 10 lengths to justify 6/1 favouritism.
She travelled strongly off the pace and cruised through to lead over a furlong out and drew clear impressively to put her 26 rivals firmly in their place at the end of two miles on heavy ground.
With Dermot Weld in Canada, his son and assistant trainer Kris Weld said: “We thought she would win and that’s been the plan since Galway. It was soft in Galway, but very different conditions today.
“It was real winter ground and I haven’t seen it as bad on the Curragh before. Leigh gave her a great ride and dad saw it live in Canada.
“She won like the decent filly she is. She’ll stay in training and hopefully she can pick up some blacktype next year.”
Voleuse De Coeurs received a 15lb hike in the handicap after winning a two mile handicap at the Galway Festival. Her future would now appear to be in Pattern company.
The race for second place was won by Missunited (8/1) who kept on for pressure to beat Lough Ferrib (14/1) by a neck. Tantalising at 25/1 gave each way backers some cheer in fourth, a further two lengths back.
Conor Hoban was given a two days suspension for using his whip with excessive frequency aboard sixth-placed Placere
(Additional reporting by Alan Magee)
