CER LORDS IT

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

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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.

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.