Adrian Heskin coolly landed his second big win in a race in England

Irish raider Church Island was a shock winner of the Bet365 Gold Cup for conditional jockey Adrian Heskin, 18, on the final day of the jumps season.

The Michael Hourigan-trained winner (20-1) was always up with a ferocious pace in the 3m 5f race at Sandown.

And he stayed on to fight off the challenges of second-placed Hoo La Baloo (14-1) and Lacdoudal (12-1).

Earlier, the David Pipe-trained I'm So Lucky (9-1) saw off Oiseau de Nuit (14-1) in the Celebration Chase.

That result, with favourite Twist Magic finishing third, gave Pipe a Sandown treble after two Timmy Murphy-ridden winners were followed up by Tom Scudamore's intelligent ride on I'm So Lucky.

Meanwhile, Cheltenham and Aintree Festival runner-up Barizan went one better on the final day of the Punchestown Festival in Ireland, running out an easy winner of the Airshow 100 Champion Four-Year-Old Hurdle.

Saturday's feature race at Sandown has a poor history of returning winning favourites. So it was perhaps little surprise that neither of the two joint-favourites, The Package and Fairoak Lad, made much of an impression.

606: DEBATE Reflect on the final day of the jumps racing season

The grey Piraya Lad went several lengths clear soon after the start, but Church Island tracked him well, along with Hello Bud.

When the pack eventually came back to the leaders, Church Island was ready to lay down a second challenge.

Irish Raptor briefly went with him, but could not sustain his run, and for a moment the 2008 winner, Monkerhostin, came into the picture.

But Church Island, an 11-year-old and the first Irish winner of this since Jack High in 2005, had enough left in the tank to finish a six-length winner with Hoo La Baloo beating Lacdoudal for second place, and Monkerhostin grabbing fourth.

Heskin, a seven-pound claimer who also had a win at the Cheltenham Festival in March, said: "Mr Hourigan has been very good to me and given me some great opportunities.

"All he [Church Island] does is stay and gallop and gallop. Turning in I thought we'd gone a bit mad but he pulled out more and is as tough as nails.

"He was a top-class horse as a novice and deserved a big one."

Hourigan said: "He should have probably won this last year, we were very disappointed then.

"It was a serious gallop, that was my problem, but I said to Adrian he would be cool enough to pick up the pace later on."

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