Spanish stamina a step too far for Johannes

It was shades of Highland Reel at Santa Anita nine months on as Seamie Heffernan once again proved how good he is from the front as he guided the three-year-old Spanish Steps to a narrow half-length victory over his better-fancied stable companion Johannes Vermeer in the Grenke Finance Ballyroan Stakes.

It helped that the winner was getting almost a stone from the favourite, and Heffernan used the undoubted stamina of his mount and the uncertain stamina of Johannes Vermeer to perfection as he kicked his mount a few lengths clear off the home bend and invited Ryan Moore on the runner-up to catch him if he was good enough.

He was not, and the winning margin at the line was half a length, with two and a half lengths back to third-placed Stellar Mass and another length and a half back to The Grey Gatsby who ran a marginally better race than on his last visit to this track last month.