Horse racing

Irish sweep

March 8th, 2010 by Donn McClean

We’ll win the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle anyway, that’s for sure. Sure isn’t Dunguib the best novice to put his head through a bridle since Golden Cygnet? Don’t mind about his jumping, it’s only the English saying he can’t jump, trying to convince themselves, and he won’t have to jump over the hurdles anyway, he can kick every one of them out of the ground if he wants and Brian O’Connell will still be able to stop for a pint at the Guinness Village on the way up the home straight before standing up in his irons at the furlong pole.

(Big cheer.)

We’ll win the Arkle as well I’d say. Captain Cee Bee may be nine, and no nine-year-old may have won it since Danish Flight won it in 1988, and before him you may have to go back to Sir Ken in the 1950s when we weren’t really sure where Cheltenham was, but how many nine-year-olds have run in it? Huh? Answer me that? Wouldn’t it be a quare nine-year-old now that was still a novice over fences if it wasn’t for an injury or something? This fellow is the business, he looks like a two-year-old. And if he doesn’t win it, won’t Sizing Europe or Sports Line or Osana or Shakervilz win it? Somersby me arse.

We always win the Champion Hurdle. It’s a bugger that Solwhit has a bit of a runny nose, but if the antibiotics that he’s on from now until Thursday are anything like the antibiotics that I had last November, he’ll be out having a pint on Saturday night and he’ll be playing golf on Sunday. Go Native should be odds-on anyway. He won the Fighting Fifth and the Christmas Hurdle and he won the Supreme Novices’ last year in the same time as the Champion Hurdle was run in an hour later when he hit the front too early and started looking for people he knew in the stands half way up the run-in.

It’s a waste of time running the Cross-Country Chase at Cheltenham. They should just have a party down at Enda Bolger’s, he has the banks and the ditches down there as well, and get him to tell us which horse of his is going to win it this year. It would save him the bother of having to send his horses across the water. The only problem will be determining which of the JP horses will wear the white cap and which will wear the green and gold quartered cap, and which cap will Nina or JT be beneath, and if they will have enough different coloured caps in the weigh room to go around the others. Sizing Australia’s presence in the race makes us about a 1.01 shot, and value at that.

We’re about the same price to win the mares’ race with Quevega and Voler La Vedette backed up by No One Tells Me and Zarinava. That’s five Irish winners anyway on the first day. We could give the William Hill Chase to the British. It’s nice when they win one on the first day, keep them coming back.

There’ll be no let-up on the second day either. Rite Of Passage, a 103-rated horse on the flat who jumps hurdles like Derval O’Rourke, is not going to get beaten in the Neptune, and if he is, it will be by Quel Esprit, whom Willie Mullins says is probably his best bet of the meeting. Weapon’s Amnesty or Uimhiraceathair could win the RSA Chase and Big Zeb could easily beat Master Minded in the Champion Chase – wouldn’t he have beaten him by a couple of lengths at Punchestown last April if he hadn’t tried to carry the last fence half way up the run-in? And if we’re 1.01 to win the Cross-Country, we’d be 1.001 to win the Bumper, if Betfair would allow you go that low.

We’ll break now for the raffle and the auction, but don’t go far, we’ll be back in 20 minutes to tell you what Irish horses are going to win most of the races on Thursday and Friday.

* For more of Donn’s thoughts, visit www.donnmcclean.com.

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Categories: Horse racing Irish Racing

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