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Rose repels Ambitious to land bumper

Rebel Rose and Derek O'Connor (left) beat Beyond Ambitious (centre)Rebel Rose and Derek O'Connor (left) beat Beyond Ambitious (centre)
© Photo Healy Racing

Rebel Rose pulled out all the stops to land the concluding bumper at Limerick this afternoon for trainer Mark Fahey.

The Dylan Thomas mare had been sixth on her debut at Punchestown in January and stepped forward nicely on her second outing.

Derek O'Connor was to the fore throughout on the 9/1 shot (14/1 this morning) and she found plenty when tackled in the closing stages.

9/4 favourite Beyond Ambitious travelled well to take closer order turning for home and was driven to tackle the front-runner a furlong out.

Rebel Rose refused to be passed, however, and stuck her head out gamely to record a half length win.

"Derek was absolutely brilliant on her and used all his experience nipping in and out between the wings, that was the winning and losing of the race,” said Fahey.

"She is a good mare and when we came down we were debating about running her as she will be better on better ground.

"We might keep her going during the summer now and kick on over hurdles. I can't see her going on really heavy ground but she will be a right good fun horse and I'm delighted for the lads involved."

(Quotes by Tom Weekes)

About Gary Carson
Gary started out as a trainee/assistant journalist with the Sporting Life newspaper and has worked in the racing industry for over 25 years. He has been with the Press Association since 2013 and won the Irish Field Nap Table in 2016. He enjoys working with horses and trained his own horse, Mamaslittlestar, to win a point-to-point in 2019.