2nd November - Clonmel Review (AW)

2nd November – Clonmel

Going; Yielding to Soft (Times suggest Good to Soft)

It was a relatively quiet meeting at Clonmel, but there were some nice performances on the day.

Window Of Hope landed the opener in nice style under Ruby Walsh, the jockey booking caught my eye and it may be possible that connections think a little more of the winner than his odds suggested. This was a nice performance. Mordor continues to frustrate his backers and is beginning to run out of excuses.

Grapevine Sally, a previous bumper winner, who had been given a warm up in a NH flat race last time out stripped fitter to land a first success over hurdles. This was a nice little performance and Edward O’Grady has her ear marked for mares races come the spring. The second horse Lady Farthingville made a really pleasing debut and is well worth looking out for if found a similar race or possibly a slightly weaker engagement.

Stepping into a handicap for the second time may have been a big help to Market Watcher and it seems that the penny is finally dropping with him now. He probably has another handicap in him and his trainer has mentioned a possible trip over to Britain for a run on the all-weather. This suggests that they may think that he is now well handicapped.

Hear The Echo landed the feature of the day with favourite Back In Front falling. The performance was nothing special but I would imagine that the winner has further success down the line somewhere, as he is very unexposed and open to any amount of improvement. The race was nothing to get carried away with though.

Ilringuback won the battle with Johnny Gonzalez in the handicap hurdle. As I had suggested the winner’s turn was coming, but this was a narrow victory and despite the gap back to third the handicapper may soon have a hold of the winner. Johnny Gonzalez was backed and the money was nearly landed, he may have more chance of further success than the winner, but this was an ordinary handicap.

Some Legend produced the best display of the day to land his first chase. Those in behind suggest that the form is creditable and the winner is a horse to keep on the right side of and this is the horse to take from the meeting if he stays at a realistic level.