Dublin Delivers The Goods
Wow! What a great two days racing we have enjoyed with Dublin Racing Festival. It threatened to be good and it delivered. This will be a great pre-Cheltenham treat for years to come. Well played to Leopardstown racecourse and the Irish racing authorities for giving us this high class meeting.
I have to say with the news about Racing UK taking over the coverage of Irish racing from At The Races, that channel deserves plenty of praise for the way they have promoted and raised the profile of racing over the Irish Sea to a UK audience and they didn’t let us down over the weekend either with the ever excellent Gary O’Brien and Kevin Blake doing a great job.
There are too many great performances for me to discuss in this weeks column but take your pick; Footpad, Min, Supersundae, Sancro, Total Recall and Monalee to name just a few of the winners.
‘Miracle Horse' Grabs Gold
However, there can only be one performance of the weekend for me and it’s Edwulf in winning the Irish Gold Cup. The 9-year-old broke down and collapsed after the last in last season’s 4m National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham. It was touch and go whether the horse would live or not. For an hour the visionary staff fought to save the horse. Thankfully he survived due to the care and attention of those looking after him and he returned to the track in December.
What a great tribute to the training skills of Joseph O’Brien to get him back onto the track again, let alone go onto win a Grade 1 race. As disappointing as it would be for punters who backed the more fancied horses in the race. This was a fitting and heartwarming climax for a fabulous two days.
We can forget “War Horse” racing now has its own “Miracle Horse”.
Cheltenham Festival: Horses for the Tracker
We're getting closer and closer to the start of the Cheltenham Festival and Cheltenham fever so here’s another horse for your Cheltenham trackers.
Despite Apple’s Shakira’s recent win on Cheltenham Trials Day and Mr Adjudicator’s battling performance to see off Farclas at Leopardstown on Sunday I think this years Triumph Hurdle is still more open than the ante-post betting on the race suggests. I am hoping that we haven’t even seen this year’s winner run on a UK or Irish racecourse yet.
My tentative pick for the race is the Paul Nicholls trained Sao. The ex-French trained juvenile will hopefully be having his first start for the trainer in the Adonis Hurdle at Kempton later this month. The 3-year-old has two starts over hurdles in France last year falling in the first of them before going onto win the second. That day he beat Sunday’s Musselburgh winner We Have A Dream who is now second favourite on most bookmaker ante-post lists for the Triumph Hurdle. In the Adonis Hurdle he will probably be taking on recent Kempton winner, the Alan King trained, Redicean who is a best priced 10/1 for the Triumph.
Sao can still be backed at 33/1, just 16/1 with Paddy Power, with a number of firms and he will bid to do what Zarkander (2011), also trained by Paul Nicholls, and Soldatino (2010) did and win the Adonis before going onto Cheltenham glory the following month. In the past 10 years horses with this profile are 2 winners from 3 runners.
He could easily disappoint at Kempton but if he wins the Adonis he won’t be a 33/1 chance for the Triumph. I am happy to take a punt on him at those sort of odds 33/1 available with William Hill (money back if your horse doesn’t run at the festival).
Monday Racing
After the feast of the weekend it’s back down to earth with a bang with some mundane racing from Newcastle and Southwell over jumps and Wolverhampton for the all-weather fans. It’s to the latter track where I am going for today’s Monday Selection.
Wolverhampton
6:45 – Gabrial The Terror – The 8-year-old is on a bit of a losing run with his last win coming here back in March 2016. He is 18lb lower than for that win, so he’s dropped to a tempting handicap mark. Five of his career wins have come here, including over C&D, so if he is to take advantage of his mark it will be here. Last time out he ran a bit better than his final position of 5th suggests as he was slow away. He was staying on well enough over the 1m 6f trip to think the return to 2m will be of benefit to him. He will need all the cards to fall right if he is to win but if they do the 7/1 available looks fair value.
Gabrial The Terror – 7/1 or better
All that’s left now is to wish you a profitable week’s betting.
You can benefit from Victor Value expertise and tips every day when you take a trial of his service for just £1 – Click Here