It is not available to viewers of ITV4 but the Irish Champion Hurdle is undoubtedly the big race of the day, with the betting market evidently expecting Honeysuckle to reveal herself as a star. Henry de Bromhead’s mare remains unbeaten but new questions are asked by this step back in trip on drying ground at a track she has never visited.
At 2-1 or thereabouts, Sharjah (3.10) is surely the way to go. But for a fall as a novice, he would have won Grade Ones at Leopardstown for the last three Christmases and he should be hard to beat in these conditions. Aramon ran Klassical Dream to a head here a year ago and makes each-way appeal.
1.50 Sandown The Contenders Hurdle, which kicks off ITV4’s coverage, is a bit short of actual contenders this year and Call Me Lord deserves to be a strong favourite in the light of his International win. He has twice run well here in the Imperial Cup.
2.05 Musselburgh It could be worth giving another chance to Ashington, who was last off the bridle here on New Year’s Day but got tired. That was Brian Hughes’s first ride on this strong traveller and they may do better again this time.
2.25 Sandown The worry about Laurina is that she has run below expectations on her last two tries in Grade One company, suffering burst blood vessels when pulled up on Boxing Day. But the conditions of this race make her hard to oppose; she is easily the highest rated but gets 7lb from all her rivals. It is a weak-looking Scilly Isles and hopefully she can come through it with flying colours.
2.45 Wetherby This drying ground might not be ideal for Dominateur but it is a help to Boldmere, who has made such good progress since joining Caroline Bailey this season.
3.00 Sandown With the Fergal O’Brien yard back in form, Ask Dillon has to be of interest on this second run of the season. He ran well for a long way on his reappearance at Chepstow before New Year but blew up in the closing stages. He should be ready to run above his handicap mark this time. Bold Plan is respected but this is quite a big step up in trip on a testing surface.
3.15 Musselburgh Having been best of the Brits in two cross-country races at Cheltenham, Chic Name might be worth chancing in this Edinburgh National. He doesn’t do anything quickly but has dropped to a fair mark and first-time cheekpieces may help.
3.35 Sandown A winning point-to-pointer who has taken his own sweet time to mature, Deise Aba might now be one to stick with. He had only one rival to beat at Catterick last time but showed enough to suggest we might see something much better this time than when he was fourth at Ascot in November.
Lingfield 12.35 Ayr Harbour 1.10 Swiss Pride 1.45 Habub 2.20 Utopian Lad 2.55 Court House 3.30 Finespun 4.05 King Athelstan
Sandown 12.40 Palladium 1.15 Dolos 1.50 Call Me Lord 2.25 Laurina 3.00 Ask Dillon (nap) 3.35 Deise Aba 4.10 Lisa De Vassy
Musselburgh 12.57 Espoir De Teillee 1.31 Bletchley Castle 2.05 Ashington 2.40 Dear Sire 3.15 Chic Name 3.52 Bathsheba Bay 4.26 Southfield Vic
Wetherby 1.03 Emmas Joy 1.38 Winter Escape 2.12 Kalooki 2.45 Boldmere 3.23 Antunes 3.58 Hazel Hill 4.33 Midnight River
Kempton 4.45 Elusif 5.15 Dame Joan 5.45 Stanford 6.15 Starlight Romance 6.45 The Pinto Kid (nb) 7.15 Never Surrender 7.45 Double Legend 8.15 Cape Hideaway
Dublin Festival prizes fail to tempt British runners
Even the National Hunt Flat races at the Dublin Racing Festival are worth €100k. There is a total of €1m in prize money on the first day of the meeting on Saturday and €1.125m on day two. And yet, of the 206 horses declared to run at Leopardstown this weekend, only three are stabled in Britain.
This is the third running of the DRF, created from the cards featuring Ireland’s Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup which were previously a fortnight apart, yet still it seems that the British training fraternity has managed to miss the memo. The almost complete absence of runners from across the water is even more of a puzzle when you consider that 12 months ago, when a similarly meagre squad of four British-trained runners took on 143 starters from Irish yards, they left with a Grade One win and third place in a valuable handicap chase.
It seems more a source of puzzlement than disappointment for David Attwood, Leopardstown’s operations manager, as he looks ahead to the 15 races, including eight Grade Ones, over the next two days.
“Obviously, trainers in the UK have different programmes for their horses and how the races fall,” Attwood said on Friday. “I think first and foremost it shows the strength and depth in Irish horses, so perhaps it doesn’t fit with the [UK] trainers that would be preparing them for Cheltenham, whereas over here the trainers aren’t scared of taking one another on.
“Overall, we’re very happy with the horses we’ve got. Jane Williams is coming over [with Monsieur Lecoq in the Irish Champion Hurdle], Harry Fry has a runner [in a handicap hurdle on Sunday] and of course, there’s La Bague Au Roi, coming back hopefully to repeat after [winning the Grade One Flogas Novice Chase for Warren Greatrex] last year. So it’s perhaps a little disappointing but we appreciate that they have their own programmes in the UK as well. Perhaps we might tempt more of them over in the future.”
Last year’s Festival was diminished by a slew of non-runners, on the second day in particular, due to unusually fast ground, but a watering programme has seen as much as 30mm applied to some parts of the track in the last fortnight.
“It was a very tough year last year with a very dry summer and winter, and then the ground was in danger of freezing as it got very cold,” Attwood says. “It’s completely different this year, but we’ve put water on to make sure there’s plenty of give to get us through the two days.”
It has not been enough to tempt Gordon Elliott to run Envoi Allen, Ireland’s best novice hurdler, this weekend and he will now head straight to Cheltenham next month for the Ballymore Novice Hurdle.
In every other respect, however, the weekend’s Grade One action stands comparison with any of the Festival meetings to come. On Saturday alone, the runners include Chacun Pour Soi, Min, Notebook, Fakir D’Oudairies, Honeysuckle, Sharjah and Klassical Dream, while the hugely popular Faugheen runs in a novice chase on Sunday before Kemboy, Delta Work, Presenting Percy and more line up for the Irish Gold Cup. British jumping, meanwhile, continues to watch from the sidelines.
