Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Theatre ready to stage a big performance
MYSTIC CAN SECURE A MULLINS HAT-TRICK
IMPRESSIVE on her hurdling debut over course and distance last month, Mystic Theatre is difficult to oppose in the Joe Cooney Memorial Mares Novice Hurdle in Kilbeggan this evening.
Willie Mullins won this contest with subsequent Grade 1 winner Airlie Beach last year. And Mystic Theatre should give the champion trainer a third win in this race in four years.
Winner of two bumpers, at Fairyhouse and Tipperary, the six-year-old King’s Theatre mare also finished a creditable second to the smart Minutes-to-midnight in a Grade 3 mares event at the Punchestown Festival.
A very easy winner of her second bumper in Tipperary in May, when long odds-on, Mystic Theatre was sent off 4/11 for her hurdling bow in Kilbeggan last month and, allowed to bowl along in front by Paul Townend, she jumped accurately on her way to a smooth defeat of Gracemount, with two subsequent winners filling third and fourth places.
Mystic Theatre displayed an appetite for jumping hurdles on that occasion and, although, 116-rated JUST JANICE, fifth to Miss Eyecatcher in a mares handicap hurdle in Galway, will present a tougher challenge, the Mullins mare is a confident choice.
The Mullins-trained ITS ONLY ROCK N ROLL, a beaten odds-on favourite on his debut in Sligo, will be fancied to make amends in tonight’s bumper. But he might not cope with
ANYTIME NOW representing the formidable combination of Gordon Elliott and Jamie Codd and coming into the race on the back of two solid runner-up efforts.
Narrowly beaten on his debut over this course and distance, he then failed by three-quarters of a length to the Mullins-trained Exchange Rate in Downpatrick, form boosted when his conqueror went on to capture the mile and a half amateur riders’ maiden in Galway.
Another attractive bet is Denis Hogan’s SHINGHARI in the opening Like Kilbeggan Races On Facebook Maiden Hurdle.
This fellow chased home Lagostovegas in a flat handicap in Killarney and was beaten only seven lengths (off 85) behind Whiskey Sour in the big amateur handicap in Galway.
He performed with promise on his hurdling bow five days later, also at Ballybrit, when finishing third to Aydoun. He’s expected to build on that effort here.