A LOT OF LOVE FOR CASANOVA

BY

PETER O’HEHIR

NARROWLY denied in the Mile on Tuesday, Casanova might gain compensation by landing tomorrow’s Ahonoora Handicap, €110,000 feature of the final session of the 2022 Galway Races.

The tough six-year-old (left) fared best of an eight-strong Ado Mcguinness challenge on Tuesday, being beaten only a half-length by Magic Chegaga.

Six of that Mcguinness team will line-up tomorrow (seven, if first reserve Laugh A Minute gets a run) with Current Option, a seven-furlong specialist and a length and a half behind Casanova in Tuesday’s race, bidding for a hat-trick in the Ahonoora and a major fancy again.

But Casanova’s overall form this season looks rock solid. Before Tuesday’s exploits, he had finished a good second to Jungle Cove in the Nasrullah at Leopardstown and fourth behind Raadobarg in the Irish Lincoln in March.

To be ridden again by 7lb claimer Adam Caffrey, Casanova is a course winner having landed a one-mile rated race here last

September, a week before scoring over today’s trip at Punchestown.

Clearly, Current

Option deserves plenty of respect, having won this race off marks of 99 and 105 respectively in the last two years, on both occasions having finished unplaced in the Mile five days earlier.

As in other years, he had shown little before Tuesday’s fine fourth and is a major threat to his stable-companion.

Another of the Mcguinness runners Pierre Lapin was fifth in the Mile, with Sirjack Thomas eighth, Saltonstall 11th and frontrunner Spanish Tenor, third in this event last year, fading into 15th.

Top-weight San Andreas beat the selection at Dundalk in March, but faces a stiff task. And a bigger threat might be Kieran Cotter’s progressive fouryear-old Lord Dudley.

Drawn low and with first-time cheekpieces, he’ll race prominently and should be involved at the business end.

Lone British challenger On A Session has every chance too, having been beaten a half-length by Current Option in the race 12 months ago.