Kerdos returns to winning ways at Dundalk in late surge

Kerdos slipped back into the winner’s enclosure at Dundalk on Sunday, edging Eclairage by half a length in the €25,000 Ladies Day At Dundalk Handicap over 5f on standard. The six-year-old carried 9st 0lb from draw 9, covered the trip in 58.97 seconds and earned the €15,000 winner’s purse after a patient ride from Jack Kearney paid off late.

Kearney kept Kerdos midfield for much of the race, asked him to close over 1f out, then drove him into second under pressure inside the final 100 yards before getting to the front in the last strides. Kearney later completed a double on the Dundalk card when he won the 1m4f apprentice handicap on Baila Conmigo.

Kerdos had been well beaten in the Rockingham at the Curragh last month, but Thorne said the horse had lost a lot of confidence on turf and that the Dundalk run might mean he had turned a corner. He described the race as a “very competitive pot” and said the plan was to wait with Kerdos because of the wide draw and the amount of pace in the field.

Kerdos was bought to win a stakes race, has run in Group 1 company at three, four and five, and had already shown ability on this surface when finishing behind Valiant Force at Dundalk on his first start for the yard in February. Thorne said the colt had been “dropping plenty in the weights” and hoped this effort had reset him for the rest of the summer. Depending on what mark the handicapper gives him, a run in the Scurry at the Curragh next weekend is in play, with another 6f handicap at Dundalk in August waiting as a fallback.

Kerdos, a son of Profitable, won the 2024 Temple Stakes at Haydock by half a length from Live In The Dream and was later shortened for the King Charles III Stakes at Royal Ascot.