Brave win for homebred Breath Of Joy

Homebred Breath Of Joy gained a very deserved first success on Tuesday when the brave winner of the 7f handicap at Haydock Park.

The daughter of Kodiac was always handy under James Doyle and showed a good attitude to overcome the leader Mountain Brave and win a shade cosily.

It was a deserved win for Breath Of Joy, who had been placed in three of her four juvenile starts for Amy Murphy, notably when just touched off in novice company at Kempton last September.

“Looking at her form, she hadn’t run a bad race and I thought she might have all her weight as a result of that,” jockey James Doyle told Racing TV. “But Amy was very confident, she said ‘I’ll be amazed if she’s not in the three’ and she was dead right. She thought the flat track and the dead side of good ground would suit her, and she was bang on.”

Breath Of Joy becomes the third winner out of Island Dreams, a broodmare purchase for the stud by Tony Nerses. The placed Giant’s Causeway mare is a half-sister to high-class miler Rob Roy.