Thunder Wonder shines under evergreen Fanning

Charlie Johnston’s Thunder Wonder was well supported ahead of the Livescore Bet Best Odds Daily Royal Mile Handicap at Musselburgh and dominated from the front under Joe Fanning.

The chasing pack briefly threatened to challenge two furlongs out but the John Brown and Megan Dennis-owned colt quickened up again and pulled clear to score by five and a half lengths at 4-1.

Johnston revealed that former William Hill chief executive Brown had been keen to take some fancy early prices for the son of Night Of Thunder.

Asked if Brown had cashed in on the victory, the trainer told ITV: “I think he might have, because he phoned me on about Tuesday or Wednesday when a few firms had early prices on the race and he said ‘is there something wrong with this horse, because he’s 25-1?’

“I told him there’s nothing wrong with this horse, this has been the plan for about two months and hopefully he got plenty of the 25s.”

Johnston also had the fifth-placed Hot Dancer and added: “I thought they both had good chances coming into it, even though there was a big disparity in the market between them last night, but Hot Dancer will come forward for the run and Thunder Wonder had had a run before at Southwell, which has clearly brought him forward.

“He’s a horse we’ve always thought plenty of and he’s now just starting to fulfil that potential.

“This is a meeting we always target and this is a race where I think we’ve had three winners and three seconds in the last six renewals, so we know the type that it takes to win the race and we’ve done it again.”

Johnston made it a nice double when Caspi Star picked up more than £20,000 for winning the Darley EBF Maiden Stakes under Silvestre De Sousa, pulling well clear late on to strike at 4-1.

The three-year-old daughter of Camelot disappointed in two outings as a juvenile but was second at Southwell on her return and got off the mark in a taking manner.

“She’s a filly we’ve always liked,” said Johnston. “She’s a huge filly and clearly that winter on her back has done her a lot of good. She was still quite green at Southwell last time but has taken a step forward again from that. It’s taken a while for the penny to drop but hopefully she can build on that.”

Persuasion kept on well under Callum Rodriguez to land the Virgin Bet Every Saturday Money Back Silver Arrow Handicap at 18-1 for the training team of David and Nicola Barron.

Rodriguez said of the eight-year-old: “We got a perfect kind of trip round for this course; good draw, nice position all the way round, travelled great and he toughed it out well to the line.

“He’s been a consistent horse in defeat for connections over the years and he got a win off this mark on similar ground last year at Haydock and we were fairly hopeful today.”