The Nigel Tiley-trained Riodini kicked-off his raceday career in perfect style at Counties on Thursday, winning the NZB Insurance Pearl Series Race (1200m).

The two-year-old son of Proisir headed into the race off the back of a 935m trial win at Cambridge last month and Tiley was pleased with his first-up effort, winning by three lengths over Sai Fah, with a further three lengths back to Ruby Negroni in third.

“He got to the line very well. I think he is a nice horse with a future, he’s really starting to go places. I look forward to him as a three-year-old,” Tiley said.

“He has just been a bit slow to mature and he has been shin sore a couple of times.

“We will give him a little break and get him back for the spring. He’s a horse that is just going to get better with time.”

Jockey Sam Collett shared the same sentiments as Tiley and believes Riodini will mature into a nice three-year-old.

“He ran really well and I think he still had plenty left to offer me,” she said. “The one draw was the biggest assist today, but he has been very well educated, which makes it easy.

“He was able to hop out and travel pretty willingly in the trail. I weighed my options up at the 600m with him, (with them) being three-wide in front, and I didn’t want to get stuck without getting a run, so I opted just to pop off and give him his chance to find the line. He was strong to the line, it was good.

“He has done a good job and I think he’s the kind of horse that will go on at three and be competitive in those good early three-year-old races.”