Racing: Supple finds winners in bountiful supply

WILLIE SUPPLE recorded an astonishing 697-1 four-timer at Musselburgh yesterday, the first time the 31-year-old Irish jockey has ridden four winners on the same card.

Supple returned to Britain in May from Dubai where he was champion jockey for the past two seasons and rode a record 75 winners there last winter.

He set the ball rolling yesterday when Misinterpretation led all the way in the claiming race and half an hour later he brought the 5-2 favourite Northern Motto home two and a half lengths clear of Ludere in a handicap to give the Scottish trainer Jim Goldie his 11th success of the campaign.

Supple won the next race, the five-furlong maiden race, on Poetry In Motion - carrying the colours of the snooker player Peter Ebdon - for the jockey's retaining trainer, Eric Alston.

"She deserved that as she has been a little unlucky," Alston said. "She knocked a tooth out coming out of the stalls."

It was Supple again 30 minutes later as he drove the 20-1 chance Roma home in the fillies' handicap. She was a first winner on the Flat for Tony Dicken, who trains just down the coast at Dunbar.

Supple, from County Kerry, said: "I've ridden trebles in Ireland and Dubai and been beaten in a photo-finish, but everything went right today."

The winners took Supple's score to 17 - four short of his total in this country last year and he is fast making a name for himself.