Star can land flat showpiece

FIT from a fruitful winter campaign on Dundalk’s polytrack, Theobald looks a solid each-way proposition in the Tote Irish Lincolnshire, when the 2019 Flat season opens in Naas tomorrow.

Punters will tread warily on this tricky eight-race card, when Aidan O’brien’s one-time Epsom Derby hope

will be the focus of attention in the listed Devoy Stakes.

The toughest puzzle is the €100,000 Lincoln for which Jim Bolger’s Theobald looks a leading contender despite reservations about his ability to handle testing conditions.

Runner-up to The Pentagon in the 2017 Tyros Stakes at Leopardstown, he was considered good enough to contest the Dewhurst and Racing Post Trophy as a juvenile.

Placed twice in a generally disappointing threeyear-old campaign last year, Theobald looked a rejuvenated performer at Dundalk over the winter, winning three of five starts.

Successful off a mark of 90 in November, he lowered the colours of Captain Joy in a Fast-track Qualifier in January and won a handicap off 97 on February 1, when scoring narrowly from a rival which was receiving 19lb.

His fitness edge and a definite touch of class sways me in favour of Theobald. But he can only be a hopeful choice in a handicap of this nature, for which Richard Fahey has sent three challengers. Lincoln stalwart

whose record shows three seconds and a third in the traditional opening day highlight, is also fit from a campaign in Dundalk, but has been done no favours by the draw.

Top-weight

successful at listed and Group 3 level last season, at Galway and Tipperary respectively, appeals in the Lodge Park Stud Park Express Stakes.

Trained by Dermot Weld, this course winner, the mount of Shane Foley, is rated 106 and has a little in hand on the older fillies in the field. And it’s debatable whether three-yearolds and

will be capable of coping with senior rivals.

The Weld-team is sure to be fit and raring to go. And I also like once-raced

a promising third to Albuquerque on his debut at Gowran, in the concluding maiden and Cork maiden winner

on his handicap debut, in the Naas Racecourse Launches 2019 Flat Handicap.

Off the track since bolting up in a maiden at the 2017 Galway Festival but, for a while considered a likely Epsom Derby hope, Amedeo Modigliani gets the vote in the new listed event, the Devoy Stakes.

His fitness must be taken on trust against

third to Harzand in the 2016 Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby but without a win since the Ballyroan at Leopardstown in August of that year – he was second to Eziyra in the same race last year.