COULD BE A ROCKY RHOD

GROUND conditions will determine whether dual Group 1 winner Rhododendron reappears on the opening day of the 2018 flat season in Naas on Sunday.

Hosting a launch of the new campaign in Ballydoyle yesterday, Aidan O’brien confirmed the four-year-old, above, winner of the Fillies Mile as a juvenile and the Prix de l’opera last autumn, is an intended runner, but stressed: “The plan is to run her on Sunday but there could be as much as 20mm of rain between now and then, and that’s a big worry.

“The plan was to go to Naas and then to France, for the Ganay and on to Newbury (for the Lockinge), but she doesn’t have to run on Sunday.”

Whether

Rhododendron runs or not, O’brien hopes to be represented in both three-year-old maidens on Sunday’s card and the Madrid Handicap.

Meanwhile, Davy Russell continued in superb form with a treble, in the opening three races in Limerick yesterday, bringing his tally, since he returned from Cheltenham on Friday to six winners.

Highlight of Russell’s haul was the victory of Gordon Elliott’s progressive mare Lackaneen Leader in the Grade 3 Kerry Group Shannon Spray Mares Novice Hurdle.

Russell provided Elliott with a double when

Caltex, in the Gigginstown colours, landed the staying maiden hurdle while the Cork rider had kicked-off by landing the opening rated novice hurdle on Chareauneuf Du Pap, trained by Ellmarie Holden.

But Elliott, Gigginstown and Jack Kennedy were out of luck in the featured Charleville Cheese Mares Novice Chase (Grade 2) when 4/7 favourite Dinaria Des Obeaux was turned over by all-the-way scorer Youcantcallherthat, trained and ridden by Denis Hogan, who was recording his biggest win in the saddle.

Hogan, whose Moyhenna finished runner-up in the earlier Grade 3, said: “She’s a class mare, improving all the time. She’s a staying type, and will run in some of the big staying handicaps next winter.”