LAST week’s three jumps meetings in Ireland – at Gowran Park on Thursday, Fairyhouse on Saturday and Naas last Sunday – between them provided plenty of quality action in the immediate run-up to the Dublin Racing Festival.
It is possible to interpret Presenting Percy’s win in the Grade 2 John Mulhern Galmoy Hurdle at Gowran in a number of ways.
On the one hand, it was highly satisfactory for him to win the race for the second year running, this time after an absence of 11 months.
On the other, he is going to have to do a good deal more in the Cheltenham Gold Cup itself, and has yet to jump a fence in public since he was a novice.
The form looks Grade 2 at best, with the useful but slightly limited Bapaume in second and little more than two lengths covering the first four home, but the time looks decent, and Presenting Percy earns a timefigure of 151 from the performance.
That is 12 below what I now have Presenting Percy achieving when winning the RSA Chase at Cheltenham last March, a race which looks good given the subsequent efforts of Elegant Escape (now on 158) and Al Boum Photo (now on 165), but not quite so good given those of the runner-up Monalee (beaten in three races since and who I still have on 156).
I have never quite bought into the acclaim which now sees Presenting Percy favourite at around 3/1 for the Cheltenham Gold Cup, for all that he is classy and versatile with it. Hopefully we will get a better chance to assess him between now and March.
THYESTES
The Goffs Thyestes Chase on the same Gowran card was the classiest renewal in many years, with greater strength in depth than when Djakadam took the race in 2015.
Invitation Only came out on top, but with Alpha Des Obeaux snapping at his heels and conceding him weight. The two get timefigures of 158 and 160 respectively, which is just below Cheltenham Gold Cup standard.
Cilaos Emery made a pleasing winning chasing debut later on the card with a 142 timefigure, on which he will surely build, while Blue Sari managed a timefigure of just 41 in winning the slowly-run bumper but posted some very fast closing sectionals, between four and 10 seconds faster than earlier hurdle races over the final half-mile or so.
MARES FAVOURITE
The highlights on a rather low-key Fairyhouse card were the wins of Real Steel (142 timefigure) in the opening beginners’ chase and of Honeysuckle (138) in the Solerina Mares Novice Hurdle.
The latter – trained by Henry de Bromhead and unbeaten in three – is deserving of her position as favourite for the Mares’ Novices at the Cheltenham Festival, the winner of which averages a figure in the low-140s.
Espoir d’Allen made it win number eight out of nine (including a bumper in the French Provinces) in the Limestone Lad Hurdle at Naas, but by only two and a half lengths from a never-nearer Wicklow Brave, and the time was modest in a steadily-run affair (133 timefigure on winner).
Konitho’s time in the opening maiden was almost identical and more impressive within context, a timefigure of 134 putting him in sixth place among juvenile hurdlers.
Ballyward gets credited with a 138 timefigure in the Grade 3 novice chase, a race he would probably have won even had Discorama (never shorter than 4.9 in running) not fallen at the last.
The concluding bumper was run in a time nearly 8.0s quicker than the maiden hurdle won by Dream Conti earlier on, with Latest Exhibition (115 timefigure) looking a superior winner of a race of this type and runner-up Braeside (108) probably capable of going one better in a similar event.