King Cuan impresses in Concorde success The Paddy Twomey-trained King Cuan (6/1) was an impressive winner of the Coolmore Sioux Nation Concorde Stakes for rider Billy Lee. It has been a memorable few days for the Red Lily Syndicate, who were victorious in the Goffs Million last week, but the horse that started the journey for the syndicate is King Cuan, and he has impressed on a constant level but put in a career-best performance today to score by three and a half lengths. He broke slowly from the stalls but, to the credit of rider Lee, he never panicked and allowed King Cuan to track the leaders and waited his time before delivering a powerful turn of foot to breeze by his opposition comfortably. Speaking after the race, rider Lee said: "I was going to take my time anyway. He can be a bit slow out of stalls and he done that again today. I felt we went quick and he takes a while to warm into it. They kept the pace up and they got going early enough. As soon as this fella got past the three-furlong pole, he came on the bridle. I was happy to just keep sitting, following away and just work my way into it quietly. He's the type of horse that if you gave him a kick in the belly he'd spring up into the bridle. I didn't want to do that too soon. I felt we'd gone quick and I was just hoping they'd come back to me. He's a horse with a big engine, I knew he'd get me into the race anyway. He'd probably have been a Group One horse if he'd been kept right and he just showed what he can do there today." (Quotes from John O'Riordan)
