Somehow the weather is contriving to be a problem for horse racing around Britain and Ireland, in differing ways at each trouble-spot. The most immediate casualty has beenTuesday’s card at Lingfield, abandoned this morning when the course was found to be waterlogged, 7mm of rain on Monday having been the last straw.
Happily we still have jump racing taking place, as the feared frost turned out to be pretty low-key at Newcastle. However, Wednesday’s fixture at Hereford is in doubt, with standing water on the track and an inspection planned for 4pm on Tuesday.
The place where they could really have done with rain in recent weeks is Leopardstown, where the Dublin Racing Festival will take place this weekend, with a whole load of top-class races, including the Irish Champion Hurdle and the Irish Gold Cup. Incredibly, they’ve been watering the course over the past week, desperate to avoid a repeat of what happened last year, when unseasonably quick going led to 22 non-runners and a field of four for the Gold Cup.
Such a policy is clearly not risk-free, as Leopardstown’s David Attwood has acknowledged. “It can be damaging to the ground and we still have another meeting coming up, where we will need to use the same chase track,” he told the Racing Post.
The worst scenario would be to have a lot of runners opening up the ground on Saturday followed by significant rain, so that the Gold Cup ends up being run on a testing surface on Sunday. I hope they get lucky on that score but there is rain forecast for the area on Saturday night. Meanwhile, the latest going report from Leopardstown says selective watering continues on the chase course, which is yielding, yielding to soft in places.
Tuesday’s best bets
Dunly (3.10) seeks a hat-trick of wins when he lines up at Newcastle and I trust he can get it at odds of about 5-4. It can now be seen that he started chasing off a very reasonable mark and, having needed his reappearance, he has twice won by daylight.
A repeat of his effort over this course and distance last week would probably be enough, as there is not a heap of promise in the opposition. But it is his third race in only a month and that can be a lot to ask, especially when conditions are testing. Thankfully, Newcastle seems to be drying out and is good to soft in places.
I find the link-up between the trainer James Ewart and Brian Hughes to be interesting. While Ewart has a perfectly good 18% strike-rate this season, it has been 31% for those runners ridden by Hughes. Until last week, no other jockey had partnered a winner for the Dumfriesshire yard this term.
Phil Kirby continues to get winners and his Lady Kyria (1.10) might reflect the yard’s upturn in form, having not been seen since running a fair third at Catterick on New Year’s Day under a 10lb claimer. She is now back on her last winning mark, from the time she scored over this course and distance in March, and Tommy Dowson returns to the saddle. She’s 7-2.
At Southwell on Tuesday evening, I’m surprised to see 5-1 about Katheefa (5.55), given that there wasn’t much doubt about his defeat of the favourite, Zylan, at this track three weeks ago. Yes, Zylan has won since on the Fibresand and I suppose his yard is now going well, but a 2lb turnaround should not reverse that bit of form. The fly in the ointment could be Wasntexpectingthat, a newcomer to Fibresand who has been doing well at Newcastle.
Newcastle 1.10 Lady Kyria 1.40 The Wolf 2.10 Glittering Love 2.40 Endlessly 3.10 Dunly (nap) 3.40 Oscar Maguire 4.10 Storm Nelson
Lingfield 1.30 Allavina 2.00 Easter Gold 2.30 Echo Watt 3.00 Swaffham Bulbeck 3.30 Go Steady (nb) 4.00 Kapga De Lily
Southwell 4.25 Luscifer 4.55 Dune Of Pilat 5.25 Le Manege Enchante 5.55 Katheefa 6.25 Bond Angel 6.55 Break The Silence 7.25 Global Melody
