Winter Power wins thrilling Nunthorpe Stakes at York

Winter Power put up a fantastic performance to land the Coolmore Wootton Bassett Nunthorpe Stakes at 9-1.

Much of the talk pre-race had been about Golden Pal and Suesa, and it was the former who led them through the early stages.

But he could never shake off Tim Easterby's filly, who kept up a tremendous gallop under Silvestre de Sousa as Golden Pal folded disappointingly.

Emaraaty Ana ran a huge race in second, with Dragon Symbol third.

De Sousa said: "She's unbelievably fast, when she hits the gates right she's really good.

"She did that here first time this year and I thought I hadn't sat on anything as fast as her.

"She's good, she's very good."

It was a famous local success, with the Easterby family synonymous with York.

The Great Habton trainer said: "She's an incredible filly. She just came right on the day.

"I wasn't really worried about any other horse in the race really because you've just got to be focused on your own horse and get them to the races on the day healthy, well, fit and the jockey's got to be chilled out.

"She's relaxed now. She relaxes now in her work, and in her races she's switched off."

Kevin Ryan was thrilled with the run of Emaraaty Ana, another horse trained locally.

He said: "The Hamilton race gave him confidence. Passing the two-pole I knew they'd gone hard and it was a question of if they could keep it up as I knew he'd stay on strong.

"Fair do's to the winner, she's incredible. She probably hit a brick wall, but it was too close to the line for us.

"Ours is a very good horse. This fellow is as good as I've had. He's probably a better six-furlong horse, we've run him over five to get him to relax but it leaves the rest of the season open.

"He's probably a bit ground dependent and needs it quick, he's in the Abbaye which might suit but he's also in at Haydock and Champions Day which could come up as bogs so we'll see.

"I'm delighted, I was confident he'd run a big one and he has. He's only young, he'll get better."

But a despondent Ward said of Golden Pal: "Frankie said he was waiting for the turn.

"I made no secret of it that I was very confident coming into the race, but the winner ran a tremendous race and we're disappointed.

"I think so highly of this colt of course I'm disappointed, it just wasn't his day.

"I still think he's a tremendous racehorse. We'll see if any answers come up when we get him back and see what we find. We were just beaten.

"From everything I've seen of this colt, he's just awesome so when he runs a race like today it's a head scratcher. We'll see what transpires, I haven't lost faith in him."