Halmahera etched his name indelibly into racing's history books at Doncaster yesterday as he landed the totesport Portland Handicap for the third year running.

Trainer Kevin Ryan took a major gamble when going to the sales and paying 40,000 guineas for the gelding when he was already six and seemingly nearer retirement than the best years of his life.

But racing has a deserved reputation for making fairytales coming true and Halmahera became the first horse since the race was first run in 1855 as the Portland Plate to win it on three occasions.

Two furlongs out, Halmahera's chances looked slim to say the least.

However, switched to the stands rail by Neil Callan, the nine-year-old started to gather momentum and got up in the shadow of the post to score by a head from Texas Gold in a course record time.

Callan picked up a one-day ban (September 19) for using his whip out of the stride pattern.

Merlin's Dancer, one of three 7-1 co-favourites, led the main body of the field on the stands side as only three of the 22-strong field stayed on the far side. One of that trio was Texas Gold, but as he tired and hung towards the centre of the course, William Muir's charge was just unable to repel the thrust of the 11-1 winner.