MICHAEL Halford’s first winner of the season, which provided the trainer with the first leg of a double, arrived in some style as the newcomer Yulong Baobei bolted up in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Auction Maiden to look a two-year-old with a future.

A €13,000 purchase at Goffs last November, the daughter of Choisir is the first horse that Halford has run for Chinese owner Zhang Yuesheng and she is already earmarked for a crack at stakes company. Shane Foley’s mount broke alertly to show in front from the outset.