WILLIE Mullins yet again turned a smart jumping mare into a stakes performer of substance and potential as Diamond Hill stretched her unbeaten run on the flat to three in the Listed Ardilaun Hotel Oyster Stakes.

Yet another Galway winner in the colours of Annette Mee, this daughter of Beat Hollow won a maiden hurdle at Ballybrit when last in action and, prior to that, she landed a two-mile Bellewstown handicap off a mark of 84. All this meant that she was taking quite a rise in class for this mile and a half assignment, but she made a seamless transition to this grade in very taking style.

The patiently ridden 5/2 favourite had most of the field to pass at one point and was forced to challenge wide in the straight, but this mattered little to Colin Keane’s mount. She still had any amount in reserve for when it mattered most and edged out Camphor by a neck to give Mullins a second win in this in three years.

“She’s a good, tough filly and she was game tonight. She travelled into the race well and she’s a big strong National Hunt mare so I always thought that she’d power up the hill,” reported Keane.

The card also featured two winners for Keane’s title rival Donnacha O’Brien and his father Aidan with the Ballydoyle duo striking first with Persia in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden. In a race that went to the Irish Derby hero Sovereign last year, the 2/1 favourite produced a commanding display from the front to score by five lengths. This was a marked improvement from his initial effort at the Curragh and this colt could easily be a force at stakes level before the end of the season.

The Ballydoyle double was completed when Found’s sister The Tooth Fairy finally got her turn in the Sean Cleary Memorial Fillies Maiden over a mile and a half. The 4/5 favourite had endured some near misses on her last couple of runs but took advantage of her easiest opportunity to date to assert in the last furlong and a half, prevailing by four and a half lengths.