Mansony over-priced
April 21st, 2008 by Donn McCleanI didn’t see Iris De Balme coming, that’s for sure. The Scottish Grand National has produced some strange results in the past, but I can’t remember one that came from as far out of left field as this one did. The winner was almost two stone out of the handicap and came into the race on the back of a mildly disappointing defeat in a Class 3 event at Wincanton. Fair play to his trainer, ex-jockey Sean Curran, and fair play to Matt Williams for giving the horse a mention in the Racing Post on Saturday. Halcon Genelardais and Old Benny both ran well to reach the frame. Hopefully if you backed either or both of them, you backed them each-way.
There is a fantastic week of racing in store at Punchestown over the next five days. It really is remarkable how far the Punchestown Festival has come in recent years. Strange to think that it is only seven years since they had their problems with the drains there, and they had to run most of the 2001 Festival at Fairyhouse. Now they have 11 Grade 1 races, a handicap hurdle worth €220,000 and a five-day feast of racing to savour.
From a betting perspective, as with Cheltenham, there is a temptation to get carried away at Punchestown. You see top class horses who have run well or won at Cheltenham or Fairyhouse or Aintree, and your natural inclination is to want to be with them. Unsurprisingly, however, that type of horse is usually over-bet at Punchestown and therefore under-priced. The key is to look for the unobvious and go against the crowd. No different to betting strategy in general then.
I put Mansony and Mossbank up in the Sunday Times yesterday for the Kerrygold Champion Chase tomorrow and the Punchestown Guinness Gold Cup on Wednesday respectively, and nothing has happened in the interim to cause me to alter my view. I have to admit, I didn’t expect that Twist Magic would take up his engagement in the Champion Chase tomorrow – all the indications during the week were that Natal would be Paul Nicholls’s only runner in the race – but he has to put two really disappointing runs behind him now. That said, I thought that they would have put him in at shorter than the 11-4 at which you can back him this afternoon, but I still wouldn’t be a backer. I have no doubt that he will travel well through the race, but this race is usually won by the horse who digs deepest over the final two fences. It is rarely won by a blinding turn of pace, which is Twist Magic’s main weapon. Furthermore, he was primed for Cheltenham and this race is surely an afterthought.
By contrast, there is every chance that this race has been Mansony’s target all season, and he has a real chance of exacting his revenge on Schindlers Hunt for the beating that he received at Fairyhouse. Strictly in the book, there is nothing between the pair, yet Schindlers Hunt has been put in at a much shorter price. Mansony came out on top when they met at Leopardstown over Christmas and when they met in the Victor Chandler Chase at Ascot in January, and he is 4lb better off for the six lengths by which Schindlers Hunt beat him at Fairyhouse last month.
Also hugely in Mansony’s favour is the fact that he won this race last year, and the fact that he is trained by Arthur Moore, who loves having winners at Punchestown, his local track. The fast pace that will almost certainly be set by Gemini Lucy, encouraged along by the blinkered-first-time Fair Along, will suit ideally, and it is easy to envision Davy Russell stealing up the inside up the home straight, just as he did last year. A little bit of rain would help but, even if they don’t get it, the Punchestown executive will not let the ground get too fast. I think they have the betting slightly wrong for this one. I would have had Mansony in at a shorter price than Schindlers Hunt, and he is far too big in my book at 9-2.
Mossbank in the Punchestown Gold Cup is a bit more obvious, but he is still over-priced at 3-1. Favourite Neptune Collonges won this race last year, but it may not have been that strong a renewal, with Kingscliff and a below-par In Compliance chasing him home, and he may be vulnerable after having such a hard race in the Cheltenham Gold Cup last month.
Mossbank was in action at Cheltenham as well, but he didn’t try to mix it with Denman, or go flat out for an extended three and a quarter miles. He ran a fine race in the Ryanair Chase over two and a half miles, just failing to overhaul Our Vic on the run-in. That trip was probably too sharp, and he will be much more at home over the three-mile-one-furlong trip of the Punchestown Gold Cup. He will love the good ground and the balance of his form suggests that he is probably a better horse going right-handed than he is going left. I would not be surprised is he was a lot closer to Neptune Collonges in the betting on Wednesday than he is now.
Donn
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Categories: Horse racing
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