Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Harry can Lord it in Ballinrobe
THE progressive Harry Rogers-trained Lord
Erskine looks the best bet on tonight’s jumps card in Ballinrobe.
A big improver on the flat last summer, when completing a hat-trick which culminated in victory off a mark off 77 in the Irish Cesarewitch in Navan, the five-year-old Fast Company gelding took advantage of a lenient hurdle mark to win twice in May.
He won off 87 in Sligo and followed-up just four days later in Tipperary, achievements which have earned him a hefty hike to a current mark of 110.
But, in the belief he still has a bit in hand (his current flat mark is 84), Rachael Blackmore’s mount is a confident choice to complete a hurdling hat-trick and prove himself on course for a trip to Galway next week, when the valuable amateur handicap on Monday is his likely target.
The Willie Mullins-trained dual bumper-winner Masons Daughter might be capable of opening her hurdling account, at the second attempt, in the opening Cawe Ceilings Murphy’s Bar Maiden Hurdle.
Third on her only excursion over hurdles, behind Champayne Lady at Fairyhouse in February, this mare hasn’t been seen since recording her second bumper success, at Tipperary in May.
But, if she jumps a bit more fluently than she did in Fairyhouse, Masons Daughter might prove too strong for the 114-rated, Joseph O’brien-trained Paris Texas, narrowly beaten by Political Policy at Bellewstown.