'Bit-part player' steals the show and ends Murphy's 50-year wait

CERCENE had the stomach for the fight to deny 6-4 favourite Zarigana and pull off a 33-1 Coronation Stakes shock — the biggest in the race's history.

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Zarigana, controversially awarded the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches by the Longchamp stewards last month, and the unbeaten Falakeyah, supplemented last Saturday at a cost of £46,000, topped the bill for the Friday feature.

But Cercene, a bit-part player judged on a sole win in a Naas maiden as a two-year-old last September, upstaged the prima donnas to push veteran trainer Joe Murphy and jockey Gary Carroll blinking into the Group 1 limelight.

As Falakeyah burned herself out by racing fiercely at the head of the 11-runner field - beating just two rivals home - Zarigana and Mickaël Barzalona edged past Cercene with 150 yards of the one-mile distance to run.