Investec Corporate Banking Dash
Heritage Handicap, Epsom 15:45 £100,000 added, 3yo plus, 5f, Class 2
Saturday 4th June 2016

1 Caspian Prince 11-1
2 Kimberella 10-1
3 Duke Of Firenze 6-1
4 Mukaynis 10/1
NR: Desert Law (IRE), Red Baron (IRE), Secretinthepark
17 ran Distances: shd, 1¾l, shd
TIME 55.99s (slow by 1.09s)

Caspian Prince edges the photo with Kimberella

Caspian Prince
© Racehorse Photos

The Dean Ivory-trained Caspian Prince (11/1) was a narrow winner of the Investec Corporate Banking Dash, the fourth race of Investec Derby Day.

Having won the £100,000 race in 2014 when in the care of Tony Carroll, Caspian Prince brought course and distance form to the table and put that good to use with his short-head victory.

Having travelled well early, the evergreen seven-year-old came nicely into contention and dug deep inside the final furlong to repel the late challenge of Kimberella, to become only the second horse to win the contest twice.

Ivory said after the race: "Caspian Prince is a great horse. We had the draw and the ground in our favour. We had freshened the horse up after he ran at Meydan earlier this year. I wanted to give him a bit of time and make sure he was fresh rather than just constantly running him."

Ivory cited the draw and the ground as important factors behind today's victory. Ivory remarked: "I just think he enjoys the speed of the track. He is one of those that if you have pace in the race, he can keep pulling out a little more all the time.

"If it is a slow run race, he can hit the front but he won't find much at the end of the race. I just trained him a little bit differently at home just to make sure he does finish his races off and he just loves here. He had the rail, Robert rode him brilliantly, had the ground and with keeping him fresh, it all worked today."

Ivory and Winston have forged an excellent partnership with the Radlett-based trainer quick to heap praise on Winston who was registering his third success in the 'Dash'. Ivory commented: "Robert is a great horseman. What I like about Robert is we will talk after the races, we will talk before, I can pick the phone up and we are always chatting saying to each 'shall we try this or this'. We work together as a team and that is what it is about. If we can work like that then we should have some very good results.

"Robert just knows the horse inside out. What a peach of a ride he has given this horse. He stuck to the rail and gave him a wonderful ride. It is a great race to win and for a second I thought he was going to be second but we've won and I just can't believe it - it's great.

"We have been a little bit quiet lately as we have had some pollen around and we are just coming out of things now so we have a lot to look forward to."

As for the future, a trip to Ireland beckons for Caspian Prince. Ivory said: "I think we will go to Ireland but we will see. We will sit down and have a chat and lay out a plan for him for the rest of the season. This ground today was a little softer than I thought but if we went to Ireland it was soft or good to soft, I wouldn't worry about running him over there now."

Ivory added: "This is a race that my father and I have been wanting to win for years and years. We have done it today, thankfully."

Investec Specialist Bank 'Dash' (Heritage Handicap)
£100,000 added, 3yo plus, 5f, Class 2
17 ran
Going: Good to Soft