Blue Flight gets McKeever and O'Connor off the mark for the season

Following a lengthy delay to the first race of the Northern scene it was a home victory for the Wilson Dennison-owned Blue Flight in the Dennison Commercials Ltd four-year-old maiden, as he saw off the challenge of The Some Dance Kid by three lengths.

The Colin McKeever-trained French-bred was providing both the locally based handler and his jockey Derek O’Connor, with their first wins of the season. The son of Blue Bresil, who is the second winner out of Lover flight, finished second at Portrush last March before a below par effort on his next outing at Loughanmore in April.

A relieved McKeever said after the race: “He’s a very big horse and he strengthened up over the summer. He had a wind problem but we have that sorted now. I said to Wilson [Dennison] that he is a far better horse today than the day he was second in Portrush.