What a nail-biter! Caribbean Coral, trained by John Quinn, and one of the Gazette & Herald's 'Ten To Follow' this season, clinched a first prize of more than £40,000 at Epsom on Derby Day when winning the five-furlongs Vodafone Dash by a virtual whisker!

The Settrington sprinter, partnered by Robert Winston, and starting at 20-1, got up in the dying strides in a race run in under 54 seconds to win by a short-head from Plateau, with Tychy, only a neck away in third. That's not all - the next five horses home were seperated by only a short-head, two heads and two necks, with Nigel Tinkler's Henry Hall, a further half-length away, finishing only ninth, but being beaten little more than a length by the winner.

Caribbean Coral, shrewdly purchased by Quinn out of Chris Wall's Newmarket stable last autumn, had finished second for his new stable at Beverley last time, a display which proved to Quinn that the five-year-old requires extreme waiting tactics to be most effective, as he tends to idle when he hits the front.

Winston gave him no chance of doing that at Epsom, producing him so late, that the horse barely knew he had his nose in front.

"Robert gave him a peach of a ride - a brilliant ride," said Quinn, who now has Royal Ascot in mind for his winner. The Wokingham Handicap, in which he will carry an 8lb penalty, is next on the agenda for Caribbean Coral.

Updated: 15:10 Wednesday, June 09, 2004