"I didn't want to disappoint him. I just sat quiet on him and let him do it himself," said the jockey who was visiting his third racecourse of the day.

Trainer Willie Mullins said that despite Florida Pearl's age he still had a few years left in him.

"I enjoyed this one better than anything else. I am delighted," he said.

"He's not a horse that has had an awful lot of racing this year. I know he's nine years of age but I think he's still young at heart.

"He's still a young horse and hasn't got a lot of mileage on the clock."

Mullins added that he and Maguire had learnt from the mistakes they made with Florida Pearl in 2000.

"Last year here, I felt everything didn't go to plan. We changed a few things this year," he said.

"Talking to Adrian before the race, we just went through where I felt we failed last year.

"He just missed out the first three fences last year and we just lined him up and said 'go' this year. It seemed to work."