Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
CUNNING FOX
JOE HAS A PLAN TO SWAMP THE OPPOSITION
JOE MURPHY’S tough and versatile five-year-old Swamp Fox should make a bold bid to land the €100,000 Naas November Handicap in Naas tomorrow.
On the final day of the 2017 flat season, when 23-year-old Colin Keane, right, will be crowned champion jockey for the first time, following a tremendous duel with nine-time champion Pat Smullen, Swamp Fox looks sure to run his race and should reward each-way support in this ultra-competitive handicap.
The mount of Gary Carroll, Swamp Fox has only triumphed twice on the flat, a maiden in Ballinrobe and the big amateur handicap at the Galway Festival last year.
But he boasts plenty of excellent flat and hurdle form – he won the Lartigue 4-Y-0
Handicap Hurdle last year before finishing third to Laws Of Spin in the Irish
Cesarewitch.
This year, he was unfortunate not to bag another big prize in Galway, finishing second in both the amateur handicap (behind Whiskey Sour) and Guinness Galway Hurdle (beaten a neck by Tigris River). And, last time, he enjoyed little luck in running when sixth to Withhold in the English Cesarewitch in Newmarket. Swamp Fox seldom lets his supporters down. And another big run is expected tomorrow, in a very tough race. The opposition includes Harry Rogers’ Irish Cesarewitch winner LORD ERSKINE, up 10lb for his defeat of Snow Falcon in Navan, when another major threat WONDER LAISH was sixth.
The latter, trained by Charles Byrnes, went on to land a substancial gamble at Leopardstown. Raised 15lb by the handicapper, Colm O’donoghue’s mount runs tomorrow under just a 7lb penalty. So he must be feared, along with Tony Martin’s TUDOR CITY and SHARE THE HONOUR, an intriguing runner, stepping-up in trip, and the Willie Mullins-trained
GUSTAVUS VASSA, which gave himself no chance by pulling too hard, when favourite, in the Irish Cesarewitch.
Keane might celebrate his Championship success by landing the mile-and-a-half maiden on Matt Smith’s WARNAQ, runner-up to solid yardstick World War at Gowran Park last time and open to improvement.