Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
HAP HAP HOO RAY
O’brien filly hopes to celebrate a hat-trick in Newmarket today
HAPPILY will bid for a Group 1 hat-trick when she leads Aidan O’brien’s challenge in tomorrow’s Bet365 Fillies Mile in Newmarket.
Ryan Moore’s mount beat the ‘boys’ in the Jean Luc Legardere in Chantilly last time and, tomorrow, will renew rivalry with the three fillies which chased her home in the Moyglare at the Curragh last month – stable-companions Magical (Donnacha O’brien) and September (Seamus Heffernan) and Eddie Lynam’s Muirin, which will be ridden tomorrow by Declan Mcdonogh.
Of course, Aidan O’brien is closing in on Bobby Frankel’s record for Grade/group 1 races won in a calendar year. And the Ballydoyle/ Coolmore team will be optimistic about further success tomorrow ahead of Saturday’s Dewhurst, in which the O’brien representatives will face odds-on favourite Expert Eye and Jim Bolger’s Verbal Dexterity.
Meanwhile, Colin Keane re-established a three-win lead over Pat Smullen in the title-race thanks to a double for Ger Lyons in Gowran Park yesterday.
Formerly trained by Sir Michael Stoute and having his second run for Lyons, top-weight Inscribe foiled fellow 5/2 joint-favourite Admirality in the seven-furlong three-year-old handicap.
And the consistent but previously luckless World War, runner-up in five of his 10 starts, made all to land the nine-furlong maiden.
The 92-rated gelding, which is bound for the Newmarket Horses-intraining Sale, was Keane’s 84th winner of the season.
Jim Bolger and Kevin Manning also shared a double, with a couple of two-year-old fillies by Vocalised.
Newcomer Cimeara finished with a flourish to win the fillies auction maiden while Haunting Vocals also dug deep to land the seven-furlong nursery.
And teenager Scott Mccullagh savoured his first success on board the Mark Fahey-trained Invincible Queen in a division of the 45-65 handicap.
Elsewhere, racing returns to Thurles today with an eight-race card.
And Henry de Bromhead’s versatile gelding Mullinavat, bidding for a hat-trick, is impossible to oppose in the first division of the Templemore Handicap Hurdle.
Runaway winner of a novice chase in Tramore on his penultimate start, this fellow bolted-up, by 23 lengths, in a handicap hurdle on the same track last Thursday.
The handicapper gave him a massive 20lb hike, but he runs today under only a mandatory 6lb penalty and, with Davy Russell deputising for the suspended Sean Flanagan, he should triumph again.
Other recent winners which might be capable of following-up are Michael Hourigan’s Fairymount Boy in the second division of the 80-95 handicap hurdle and Gordon Elliotttrained Swingbirdge, back over hurdles, in the Cashel Handicap Hurdle.