River Of Life in full flow on debut for Thorne River Of Life justified good support when making a winning debut in division one of the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden at Dundalk. Trained by Stephen Thorne for John Kirkland, the son of Sergei Prokofiev was available at 7/1 overnight and supported into 2/1 favourite by the off. Jack Kearney’s mount made headway in the straight to lead a furlong out and the rider didn’t need to get serious as he kept on well to beat Fate’s Gambit by half a length. Vishaya kept on from off the pace to finish a further five and a half lengths back in third. Thorne said, “Lovely performance. He's a horse we were sent from Mrs Jim Ryan and Mrs John Kirkland that they bought at the breeze ups last year. “We got him into our system at home and decided to give him a little bit of time off through the summer just to mature and strengthen. He came back to me in great shape in September. "He has impressed us the whole way through. Every little bit we have done with him, he has just continued to bounce the ball back at us to ask us to give him a little bit more. "Ready to start there today, we knew he would come forward plenty for it. We knew he was streetwise enough to run a nice race, and this was fortunately the weaker division of the two divisions on the card tonight. "He has done it very nicely and we'll have a sit down and see if there might be a winners' race coming up, so we'll see how he takes it. "He will be a lovely horse for the turf later on in the season. "I think he will (get a mile), and Jack said he travelled through the race well. We might be keen to stick to seven for the moment. "Robson (De Aguiar) did fancy his horse (runner-up Fate's Gambit), so hopefully we might have beaten something smart there." Quotes by Michael Graham
