Beef passes physio test
Beef Or Salmon was taken to see equine physiotherapist Liz Kent in Co Carlow on Friday to be checked out for the first time this season. Kent transformed the horse from a near cripple to a live Cheltenham Gold Cup contender last winter but Michael Hourigan, below, had little doubt about his stable star being given a clean bill of health because he has been doing a lot of slow work for the past month.
Hourigan says that the eight-year-old’s first race of the campaign will depend on the weather and that he has an open mind about starting him off on the Flat as he did two seasons ago. The Clonmel Oil Chase, last season’s first port of call, may not necessarily be on the agenda because Hourigan has others under consideration for the November 18 race including Hi Cloy, who is in similar ownership.
Harbour Pilot, who finished third in the Gold Cup for the second successive year, nearly two lengths in front of Beef Or Salmon, is likely to have his first race of the season in the Durkan Chase at Punchestown on December 5. Trainer Noel Meade says that he is keen to get a race into the nine-year-old before the Lexus (formerly Ericsson) Chase at the Leopardstown Christmas meeting. The plan after that is the Hennessy and then another tilt at the Gold Cup.
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Lady waits for Opera role
Tropical Lady will not run again until the Prix de l’Opera at Longchamp at the beginning of October. Some of the gloss was taken off the soaring reputation of this filly when she finished last of five behind Ace at Leopardstown a week ago, just seven days after her winning run came to an end in the Royal Whip Stakes.
Trainer Jim Bolger is adamant that there was no question of going to the well too often. He is convinced that she needs ‘to be dropped out and allowed to mooch around’, whereas at Leopardstown she was racing in earnest most of the way.
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Murphy makes plans for Inca
Brave Inca, winner of his last seven starts, will have his first hurdle race of the season in either the Anglo Irish Bank Hurdle at Down Royal on November 5 or in the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle at Fairyhouse at the end of the same month.
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Trainer Colm Murphy, who says there is a ‘high possibility’ that the six-year-old will start off in a race on the Flat, is aiming his Supreme Novices’ Hurdle winner at the Champion Hurdle. An early clash with reigning champion Hardy Eustace is on the cards, either in the Hatton’s Grace or at the Leopardstown Christmas meeting.
Punters priced out
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Punters are getting ripped off at point-to-points. The bookies have been offering skinny prices at these fixtures for generations but just what poor value they offer is detailed by Mike Barrett in his Formcard Point-to-Point Review, which was published last week.
Barrett has analysed the bookmakers’ over-round for every race at each of last season’s 100 point-to-point meetings. This is the theoretical margin to which a bookmaker operates and the average figure for racing in Britain is 125%, which means that the layer will make E25 for every E100 staked if there is a reasonable amount of money for every horse. There seldom is and this is the reason why the average in Irish racing is 140%-plus.
However in last season’s point-to-points the figure was 178%, and over 200% at 18 meetings. Little wonder that Barrett says new punters are put off to such an extent that many never return.
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Lost in translation
Many racing expressions mystify outsiders but some of those that have been appearing in the Irish Racing Calendar recently have had even the professionals scratching their heads. A new one that has become a regular is jockeys describing that their mounts have ‘run out of racing room’ when giving reasons for a below-par display.
If this is really what they said, they should be asked questions about their competence. Presumably what they meant was that they were hampered but this pales in comparison with a trainer’s explanation last month that his horse ‘checked off heels in running’. Perhaps the Turf Club should provide a technical glossary.