Adelaide River earns Classic quotes with Dundalk success

Adelaide River emerged as a potentially smart performer with victory at the first time of asking at Dundalk.

The Aidan O’Brien-trained Australia colt was sent off at 11-4 for the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden and made those odds look generous with a bloodless success under Wayne Lordan.

He only needed to be pushed out, without his rider having to get serious at any stage, for a two-and-three-quarter-length victory over Golden Temple, with odds-on favourite Gimmie Shelter in third.

The winner holds a number of big-race engagements and was given a 40-1 quote for next year’s Derby by Paddy Power.

Lordan said: “He’s a lovely colt. He always showed a bit at home, but was always the lazy one as well. He went down to the start today nice and sleepy.

“He jumped a bit slow, but thankfully I had the room to get him up into a good position. He came down past the two (pole) well and went forward nicely and was pricking his ears. He had plenty left.

“I was just travelling, but that’s the way he is and you would know there is plenty there. When he did get there, he pulled up a bit.

“He is just one of those types, you would never know how much he is going to keep improving. He is a fine horse.”

Harry’s Bar absolutely loves Dundalk and recorded his sixth win on the Polytrack as he defied the welter burden of 10st 10lb in the Bar One Racing Mourne Handicap, to lead home an Ado McGuinness-trained one-two.

McGuinness said of his 100-30 favourite: “Yes (a fair effort) under that weight. The young lad (Adam Caffrey) was very good on him, he’s great value for 7lb. He was excellent on him, he didn’t panic. They went good and fast and sometimes lads would panic, but he didn’t. He gave him a great ride and my other horse (Dream Today) ran a belter as well.

“I don’t know what he is going to be rated after today! He’s a very, very good horse and the boys have had great fun out of him. He’s a horse of a lifetime for a bunch of lads. We’ll just tip away with him. I don’t know what we will do next. We will come back here for the Group Three later on in the year (Mercury Stakes on October 21), that will be his main target.

“We did travel him before, he definitely wants Tapeta or some sort of an all-weather surface. We were going to take him to Canada one year and it was too much money to fly him out. He will travel again somewhere.”