'He should keep progressing' - Cruden helps keep the good times rolling for Jessica Harrington and Shane Foley

Time will tell whether Shane Foley has sufficient ammunition to win the jockeys' title, but he is very much the pacesetter and a double at Limerick brought his seasonal tally to 25, four ahead of his nearest pursuer Colin Keane.

Riding for Jessica Harrington at the moment could not be more rewarding. The Commonstown trainer provided both legs of the Foley double to record her 11th winner in the past ten days. 

The Kirsten Rausing bred-and-owned Fleur De Chine set the ball rolling when landing the fillies' maiden, with Foley taking full advantage of a clear passage to get first run on market rival Kailasa.

Bringing up the double was Alpha Racing's once-raced colt Cruden, who gradually got on top late on to land the 1m3f maiden from odds-on favourite Soul Of Spain.

The trainer's daughter and assistant Kate Harrington said: "We had a lovely bunch of two-year-olds last year and a lot of backward three-year-olds. You can see this one's a big horse that's really starting to fill into himself and he's learning on the job.

"When Shane got him out into the open he didn't really know what to do, but he really ground it out to the line. He's a horse that should be a gorgeous stayer in the making. He should keep progressing and I think he'll improve on better ground."

Whelan on the double

Another in-form jockey to keep his run going on the afternoon was Ronan Whelan, who recorded a double of his own.

The more meaningful one of the two was aboard his mother Kathleen's Pinar Del Rio, who followed up his recent Curragh win by convincingly landing the 6½f handicap for Curragh trainer Joe Conlon. 

Off an 8lb higher mark, this was a good performance and this son of Havana Gold is just the sort of horse a young trainer needs. He has supplied both of Conlon's winners.

Conlon said: "He's improving. He wasn't 100 per cent last year and we had a few things done with him. He's starting to pay us back now. We'll try to run him as much as we can for the next while because he wants a bit of juice in the ground. We'll give him a break when the ground gets quick."

Whelan completed his double when giving a confident ride to the topweight Lord Church for the Michael Halford and Tracey Collins partnership in the three-year-old handicap. An imposing son of Churchill, he got on top in the last furlong to see off the persistent runner-up Poppadom.

Halford said: "He did it well in the end. He's a smashing individual, a gorgeous big horse. He's a work in progress, he's going to go another furlong and he'll improve on better ground."

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