'He's one of the most expensive horses we've had' - Invictus Spiritus sparkles on racecourse debut for Clover

Invictus Spiritus produced an impressive debut display when snatching victory in the 7f maiden for trainer Tom Clover and jockey Ross Coakley.

The son of Invincible Spirit was green during the race, but showed a sharp turn of foot to surge past Arabic Art late on, with 8-11 favourite Skukuza only managing third.

Invictus Spiritus did not shine in his early work, according to the trainer, but his spark was brought out by a gelding operation.

He said: "This is one of the most expensive horses we've had in the yard, but he’s only just come forward the past couple of weeks. He really was showing us nothing as a colt, so we had to geld him.

"It was a very pleasing debut performance because it feels like there'll definitely be improvement there. He only did his first good piece of work ten days ago."

The 150,000 gns purchase had plenty of ground to make up on the leaders after being slowly away from the stalls under Coakley.

Clover added: "It surprised me he was a bit green early on but I was thrilled how much he seemed to learn through the race. The penny really dropped in the last furlong and I loved how he hit the line."

Belo bolts up

Belo Horizonte spectacularly broke his maiden in the mile classified stakes under Neil Callan.

On his fifth career start and sent off the 7-4 favourite, the Richard Spencer-trained gelding stormed to success by five and a half lengths.

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