Aidan’s got high hopes for Troy
Tactical Move was only beaten a length and a half by Tuesday’s Grade 1 winning Spillane’s Tower in the WillowWarm Gold Cup at Fairyhouse and that’s impressive form.
He gets 4lbs off his stablemate and could prove hard to beat for Danny Mullins.
It should prove a very profitable day for Mullins and Towned with STATE MAN (6.00) practically impossible to oppose in the feature €300,000 Boodles Champion Hurdle.
Quality
The 2m hurdling division is very low on quality at present, with Constitution Hill marked absent and barring accidents he should comfortably account for Irish Point, who he beat in the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham.
Mullins and Townend will also be very short odds to add the Alanna Homes Champion Novice Hurdle to the list of Grade 1s they’ve won this week, with impressive CHeltenham winner BALLYBURN (6.35) another one near certain to win.
He was arguably the most impressive winner of any race at Cheltenham and it would be one of the shocks of the week were he not to be successful here also ahead of a likely crack at Constitution HIll and State Man next season in the Champion Hurdle.
The 2m Uniquely Novice Hurdle is a ‘winners of one’ race that Mullins has farmed in recent times and indeed won it with some ex-ceptionally sm-art horses like
Un De
Sceaux,
El
Fabiolo and
Arctic
FIre.
The
BALLYDOYLE’S potential superstar City Of Troy heads a field of 11 in tomorrow’s Qipco 2000 Guineas Stakes at Newmarket.
Unbeaten in three outings last season, he has sparked Triple Crown dreams once more for Aidan O’Brien and his Coolmore owners.
Having come so close with in 2012 with Camelot, who won the Guineas and the Derby before finishing a three-quarter-length second to Encke in the St Leger, winning all three Classics remains an itch O’Brien would love to scratch.
City Of Troy, by an American Triple Crown winner in Justify,
Danger
inclusion of Boodles’ winner Lark In The Mornin adds real spice to the race on what’s been a memorable week for his rider JJ Slevin and owner Sean Mulryan. looked imperious when winning the Dewhurst last season.
His main danger according to the bookmakers is the Richard Hannontrained Rosallion, who was very impressive in claiming Group One glory in France last autumn. Hannon also runs the cosy Craven scorer Haatem.
There are plenty of other unbeaten colts with untapped potential and perhaps at the top of the list is Karl Burke’s Night Raider who has had
He gets weight being just a four-yearold but looks up against it to beat the Mullins trained ANOTHERWAY (7.05), who was a very unlucky loser in a Grade 2 at
Fairyhouse when crashing out at the second last in the race won by Captain Cody.
This technically represents a drop in grade but in reality it’s not as the race is deep but Paul Townend’s mount does look a potential Grade 1 horse in the making.
Restricted
The opening Bishopscourt Cup is a race restricted to trainers who are bona fide farmers in the Kildare Hunt Club area and is one of the more idiosyncratic contests here this week.
DE NORDENER (3.40) was well beaten here on Tuesday but this race doesn’t look as tough and his followers can expect him to go closer this afternoon. Sam Curling’s eight-year-old is partnered by Downpatrick native Toni Quail, a young 7lbs claimer doing well on the pointto-point scene.
The day ends with a bumper and a chance is taken on Emmet Mullins’ MELBOURNE SHAMROCK (7.40) to build on a point-topoint win in January for Matthew O’Connor. He’s since been bought by the Waley-Cohens and looks a potentially smart type. just two outings on the all-weather, winning by nine lengths on the first occasion and five lengths at the second time of asking.
His jockey Danny Tudhope said: “He wasn’t up against much in either of his races but he couldn’t have been more impressive.
“His work at home has been absolutely outstanding, and he’s really maturing into himself. I sat on him on Tuesday morning for a little breeze, and he felt great.
“He had a gallop on grass for the first time at the Craven meeting and I thought he handled the track unbelievably well.
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