Initially, I was hoping that Rubi Light would be bigger than 5/2 for Sunday’s John Durkan Chase. The components were lining up: not very fashionable horse in the context of the race, not up there with the Joncols and the Quito De La Roques and the Tranquil Seas of the world, never won a Grade 1 race, only ever ran in one, trained by small trainer. He was the quintessential under-the-radar horse.
Then Colm Murphy said that Quito De La Roque wasn’t going to run in the race, that he was going to wait for the Lexus Chase at Leopardstown over Christmas. It is a good decision, of course, the right decision for the horse, but it is a decision that impacts negatively on Sunday’s race, both from an interest and from a betting point of view.
Top class horse that Quito De La Roque is, he would have added lustre to a John Durkan Chase, and he would surely have been at least challenging for favouritism, he may have been clear favourite with fashion in his favour. However, you have to think that two and a half miles, even two and a half miles at Punchestown this weekend with rain set to fall on top of heavy ground, would not present a stern enough stamina test for the Gigginstown House horse. He was a take-on job for me in Sunday’s race, he was a horse who would have been making the market.
So, in QDLR’s absence, when they said 5/2 about Rubi Light, I said, aw; same as you might say if you went into Auntie Nellie’s Sweet Shop and said, how much for a quarter-pound of apple drops, and the owner (Auntie Nellie) or one of her helpers said two euro, and you checked your pockets and all you could find was €1.28.
Then I got to thinking about it some more. True, Rubi Light has only ever run in one Grade 1 race, and he playing in the top division on Sunday. Joncol and Tranquil Sea are going to be tough opponents. Joncol won the race in 2009, Tranquil Sea won it last year, Joncol has also won a Hennessy, Tranquil Sea has won a Paddy Power Gold Cup, both have proven their class. On top of that, both have warmed up for Sunday by winning on their respective debuts this season, both nice and impressively, stepping stones to the remainder of the season, putter-righters for the John Durkan, almost certainly an early-season target for both.
Paul Nolan resisted the lure of Newbury’s Hennessy for Joncol, which is in his favour on Sunday. A trip over and back across the water, with an extended three-and-a-quarter-mile slog sandwiched in between, would not have been the ideal preparation for a Grade 1 race three weeks thence. Even so, Barry Geraghty, who would have ridden Joncol at Newbury had he made the trip, has chosen to ride Tranquil Sea instead. The rider says that it was a tough decision, that he wouldn’t be surprised if he was on the wrong one, but there are few more astute readers of the form book in the weigh room than Barry Geraghty, and if he says by deed or by word that he thinks Tranquil Sea has a better chance than Joncol, even marginally, then it probably pays to prick your ears.
That said, it is possible that Rubi Light can beat the pair of them. If you were to frame a race to suit Robbie Hennessy’s horse, you would say, John Durkan Chase, two and a half miles on heavy ground at Punchestown, a track at which he finished second to Mourad in his only hurdle race and won his only chase. His trainer thinks that he will get further, Davy Russell says that he is three-miler in waiting, but for now he is a two-and-a-half-miler, and a bloody good one when the ground rides soft.
True, he still has to win a Grade 1 race, but it is difficult to believe that he is not potentially top class. He beat subsequent moral Punchestown Gold Cup winner Roberto Goldback in the Red Mills Chase at Gowran Park last February, and he went to Cheltenham and finished third in the Ryanair Chase in March, on ground that should have been way too fast for him, staying on well up the hill after getting done for pace around the home turn to get to within three lengths of the winner Albertas Run.
Also, he had Sizing Europe beaten to the ropes on his seasonal debut in a Grade 2 chase at Gowran Park in October when he fell at the last. That was most uncharacteristic, he is a super jumper, his jumping is one of his primary assets, and he had been flawless in that race until the last.
He hasn’t run since then, which is testimony to his trainer’s patience. He was on track for QDLR’s JNwine.com Chase at Down Royal before a viral infection ruled him out, and he was under consideration for Kauto Star’s Betfair Chase at Haydock until his trainer determined that he was somewhere in the 90%s fit, and that you needed to be somewhere in the 100%s if you were going to be going over to Haydock and taking on Kauto Star and Long Run.
So he goes to Punchestown on Sunday a fresh horse, a progressive horse, he is only six and he has run just eight times over fences. It is almost certain that we haven’t got to the bottom of him yet. His rivals are all good, every single one of them, Joncol and Tranquil Sea in particular, they both set a high standard. But we know exactly how those two are. The thing about Rubi Light is, we don’t know how good he could be, we don’t know how high he could reach, he probably has plenty of improvement left to come, and he is already officially the highest-rated horse in Sunday’s race.
So 5/2 then? Hmm, like you say when you check your pockets again and find another 72c.
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