HOT SALES HEAT FOR THE EUROS AT FAIRYHOUSE: Can the tough-as-nails Irish defenders take the 73,000-euro sales race at Fairyhouse today or will the English tie them to the gatepost? Shamrock looks at the list and finds a 15.0 Betdaq-value bet. His last Irish meeting (racing was abandoned yesterday) brought him a successful nap and lay.
It’s the only race of its kind in Ireland. And it’s taken us years to hold on to it, with 10 straight wins for English raiders until 2008.
Kevin Prendergast broke the mould that day, and we have won two out of three since, with our only slip when Richard Hannon landed his fourth success with the highest rated winner we’ve seen in the race, Dick Turpin.
Obviously Hannon has to be respected but the filly Three AM Tour seems no Dick Turpin, unless she can improve two stone on her Wolverhampton win over an 82-rated maiden. It gives us hope.
Top two rated today are Michael Mulvany’s Tough As Nails (off 112) and seemingly the main English raider, Mick Channon’s Gatepost (107).
High numbers did well last year but the stalls result in Dick Turpin’s time (6, 11, 1, 3, 2, 4, 7, 9, 8 for the first nine home) is more typical of Fairyhouse on the soft, which suggests that the favourites are too short.
Tough As Nails, in 17, who has done reasonably well in the top-class Phoenix and National Stakes, and Gatepost (in 14), who was behind Tough As Nails in the Phoenix, but was last in the Morny, both have their work cut out to prove that class will tell here.
The draw has put the 2008 winning trainer Kevin Prendergast right back into the mix here, with stall eight for the Azamour colt, Azamata, and the one stall for soft-ground-winning filly, Blue Mimosa.
Ballydoyle reaches for the blinkers for Raphael Santi (stall 5) – as does Clive Cox with My Solitaire (10) – and Battleoftheboyne (in 4), a stablemate of the favourite, has a similar rating to Three AM Tour, though Michael Mulvany says he’s ‘sweet’ on his chances.
My fancy is the Giants Causeway filly, Absolute Crackers, who has had a couple of nice easy preps for this and is highly thought of by the currently in form Jessica Harrington stable.
SHAMROCK’S BETS
NAP: Cabin (2.45 Fairyhouse)
NEXT BEST: Sonapour (5.15 Fairyhouse)
OUTSIDER: Absolute Crackers (3.45 Fairyhouse)
DAQ TRIO: Cabin (2.45 Fairyhouse), Absolute Crackers (3.45 Fairyhouse) and Sonapour (5.15 Fairyhouse)
