Puerto Rico loses maiden tag in Champagne Stakes

Puerto Rico made every yard of the running to shed his maiden tag in style and land the Betfred Champagne Stakes at Doncaster.

Trained by Aidan O’Brien and given a perfect front-running ride by Sean Levey, Puerto Rico (15-2) was sharply out of the stalls with 6-5 favourite Gewan on his heels in race run in a heavy rain shower.

Levey set only an average gallop and had plenty in reserve, picking up with a couple of furlongs to run and staying all the way to the line to hold off the late finish of Oxagon by a length, with Gewan dropping right away in the closing stages.

Without a win in five previous starts, Puerto Rico was cut to 12-1 from 40s by Paddy Power for the Futurity Trophy back on Town Moor over a mile next month.

O’Brien was at Leopardstown, where he said: “Sean gave him a lovely ride. He’s coming forward and getting better. He was the best maiden in Europe!

“You’d have to be very happy with him. He’ll stay further, too.”

Kevin Buckley, representing winning owners Coolmore, said: “It looked like a very decent race (beforehand), (but) he’d had a couple of nice runs recently and he did it nicely – Sean gave him an exceptional ride, too.”

Levey added: “I would have been happy to have taken a lead, but one thing with these horses – they are happy in front.

“Oisin’s (Murphy) horse (Oxagon) was keen last time and probably lacked experience so he won’t have wanted that to happen again.

“My lad was very straightforward. He’s danced a few dances and had plenty of experience, we got into a nice rhythm, he picked up quite nicely there and showed that he’s a good horse, especially now up to seven.

“He was beautifully settled. At the four marker when I was just starting to wind it up he was just filling his lungs up. When he got to the two he still had plenty in reserve.

“He quickened up nicely. He had plenty of experience and I think it showed.”

Oxagon is trained by John and Thady Gosden and the first-named was taking plenty of positives in defeat.

He said: “It was only his third race and he didn’t learn much in his first one. Sean’s horse has been sprinting and he’s led at a sensible pace, kicked, nicked three lengths and we’re getting it back at the end.

“We’re getting it back too late and I liked the way he finished strongly.

“The Futurity is a long way off but we may well do (come back), it looked like the mile would be no problem to me. He’s by Frankel so that could be a strong possibility for him.”

Cape Orator snatched third place, with Gewan a four-length fourth in what was a “disappointing” run for trainer Andrew Balding.

He said: “PJ (McDonald) just felt he didn’t have the action he had at York on the ground so we learned something and it’s disappointing but we will regroup.

“He never felt comfortable as soon as he sat into him but we’ve learnt something.”