First double for Jack Davison as Navan stewards make controversial call to reverse result of sprint maiden

Jack Davison celebrated the first double of his career, albeit in rather controversial circumstances as the first leg came after the stewards reversed the result of the sprint maiden.

The well-supported newcomer Lady Fox passed the post a head in front of the Davison-trained Freedom Falls but, after deliberating for more than a quarter of an hour, the stewards ruled in favour of the 11-8 favourite despite the fact she was very much the outsider of the pair on Betfair throughout the inquiry.

Lady Fox had carried Freedom Falls across the course and, while there wasn't a huge amount of contact, the stewards felt enough interference had taken place to change the outcome. It looked a 50-50 call and they went in favour of the victim rather than the offender.

Ronan Whelan, the rider of Freedom Falls, unsurprisingly felt the right decision had been made. He said: "The other horse has come over and I feel my filly has been intimidated. It’s obviously fine margins and I felt it affected my position and the stewards felt the same."

The second leg of Davison's double was slightly more straightforward as The Snapper swooped late and fast under a fine Gary Carroll ride to win the 5½f handicap.

He landed a bit of a plunge too as he had been available at 10-1 earlier in the day but returned the 9-2 favourite.

Davison said: "I'm delighted. It's not easy to train winners in this country, it's so competitive, so to have my first double is very special.

"The Snapper is a mudlark and seems to grow a leg on that ground. He has decent form on good ground but really comes into his own on that ground."

Wind blows rivals away

The most stylish individual in action was undoubtedly Harbour Wind, who surged clear to land the €22,000 Irish Stallion Farms EBF Race by seven lengths.

The Cork maiden winner had his task made easier when Colin Keane's reins snapped on fellow joint-favourite Dutch Gold and he eased out of the race early.

It would have taken a big performance to beat Harbour Wind, though, and Dermot Weld felt the ground and the trip played to his strengths.

The winning trainer said: "It was a funny sort of race as I think something happened to Colin Keane’s reins and you can’t read too much into the distances as you can get extreme distances on testing ground.

"The one thing we didn’t know was whether he would handle the ground, but he handled it well. He came up the hill well. We’ll take it from there and see how he progresses. We have no definite plans."

Ocean splash

Ocean Baroque bumped into Chesham runner-up Pearls And Rubies on his previous visit to Navan and with nothing of that calibre in the opening 5f maiden he got off the mark under Declan McDonogh at 11-4.

Winning trainer Kieran Cotter said: "It’s nice to win a maiden with him and it’s well deserved. His second at the Curragh has worked out well and the key to him is that he needs cut in the ground. Declan said he’d be one to mind and run him with cut in the ground. Maybe he could be competitive in something like the Birdcatcher."

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