INTRIGUINGLY, the market for the feature contest of the first day of the Fairyhouse Easter Festival, the RYBO Handicap Hurdle (5.05), was propped up by two four-year-olds last night - Risk Belle and Jazzy Matty.

The pair furnished third and first respectively in the Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival but now take on older horses for the first time and had their chances significantly increased when every horse above the 138-rated Shanroe came out, bringing those towards the bottom of the card into the weights proper.

Another to beneficiary from this was Liz Doyle’s mare Ballybawn Belter, who earlier this season scored in the Paddy Mullins Mares Handicap Hurdle at the Dublin Racing Festival. She had the option of this contest or the Grade B Easter Festival Handicap Hurdle over two and a half miles at Cork tomorrow but the soft ground at Fairyhouse today was enough to convince Doyle to take her chance in this more valuable contest.

“She won over two miles and two furlongs at Leopardstown so she is right in the middle,” Doyle said. “She came in travelling best and hit the line well, and I’m just hoping the soft ground compensates for the drop down in trip.

“She handles soft ground. If it had come up yielding or good ground at Fairyhouse, I might have dodged this race. Aidan Kelly is taking 7lb off her so if she gets a clean ride, she only has 1lb more to carry than the last day. She is nice and fresh and goes into this race having been trained for it, which might not be the case for a few of the horses she takes on. We’re hopeful of a big run.”

Another horse coming into the race fresh is Terence O’Brien’s Magnor Glory, who was last seen winning the Grade B Ladbrokes Handicap Hurdle at Listowel in September. An intended runner in the County Hurdle, the seven-year-old cruelly missed that engagement having picked up an abscess on his fetlock, having travelled over to the course.

“He was perfectly fine after we gave him an antibiotic but it was just one of those things that happens unfortunately,” O’Brien said. “He has run well fresh but having said that he hasn’t run for seven months now so it’s probably a bit of an ask.

“I’d have been more hopeful if the top horses didn’t come out, as that has let the lower-weighted horses in off their proper weights and they look the ones to beat, the two unexposed four-year-olds.

“The ground is going to be a bit of an issue as well. Having said that he’s in good form and we’re hopeful that he’ll run well. He’s proven that he’s a decent horse the way he won at Listowel. We probably need to improve from that.”