Night And Day (Paul) has her first run for us in the mares maiden hurdle over 2 miles. She’s a nice mare who has taken time to come to herself this season. This is a tough task for her on testing ground after a long layoff so we’ll just have to see how she gets on.
We have two runners in the 2 mile maiden hurdle. Feu Du Bresil (Paul) was fifth on his first run for us at Limerick over Christmas. That wasn’t a bad effort considering he hadn’t run since finishing second in a hurdle at Auteuil in 2018. He’s going well at home and if he doesn’t “bounce” he should go close. I Am Rocco (Brian Hayes) was very disappointing when pulling up at Limerick. A change of jockey and a major change of tactics might invigorate him but he needs to improve a lot to get involved today.
We run three in the 2 mile conditions hurdle. Blue Sari (Luke Dempsey) has been campaigning over fences and this looks a nice race to start back. His hurdle mark gives him a chance but he is a hard horse to get right and will improve from this run. Gaelic Warrior (Paul) was second in the Boodles Handicap Hurdle at Cheltenham and as expected won his maiden hurdle by a wide margin at Tramore last month. This looks like a nice opportunity rather than taking on top horses at the Dublin Racing Festival. We are climbing the latter slowly with him and he should be hard to beat here. Braganza (Sean O’Keeffe) ran well after a long break behind Shewearsitwell at Leopardstown last time. If she comes back to her best form of last season she would have an each-way chance here. We will see today what improvement she has made.
