18th November – Punchestown Review (AW)

18th November – Punchestown

Going; Hurdles – Soft to Heavy, Chase – Heavy (Times suggest Heavy)

Joe Crowley found Piltown a good opportunity to add to his tally. The field were relatively exposed to the favourite, but there was always the threat for me that one of the unraced runners could be an unknown quantity. This nearly proved to be the case, as Sophist appeared an apparent threat down the home straight, where Piltown’s experience probably just got him through. This was a fairly average race performance, but it would be nice to see the second pick up a little race.

The next race was held on the cross-country course over the middle of the track. It was a good training performance from Ted Walsh to get Never Compromise back into winning ways. These types of races aren’t anything to get carried away with from wise.

Off the track for 664 days, Cadogan showed no lack of fitness to cruise to a simple looking second success over hurdles. He made a really eye catching run that saw him all over the favourite You Sir heading for home, he than ran on to score tidily from stable mate Militant. He should come on from this run, despite being race fit, and he could make up for lost time in the forthcoming months. It was nothing to get really carried away with but it was fairly visually pleasing and the time supported it as being a fair effort.

Purple Shuffle sprang an upset in the novice chase to provide Pat Fahy with a much needed winner. He had raced over a shorter trip last time out and the step back up in distance proved very much to his liking as he fought off Vic Venturi for a narrow victory. Favourite Mattock Ranger was said to have gurgled and ran far below the form that he had shown last time out. The performance was fairly sound but I’d be inclined to think most of this field would be exposed against some of the better novices that are currently around.

Tony Martin had Ross River in great shape for his first run of the season. This is Ross River’s second season with Tony Martin and he really does seem to have found the ability that he has always indicated may be lying within. I personally thought that the winner may be lacking for fitness but this was far from the case as he came through under a really good hold up ride from Davy Russell. Although a ten year old I think the winner has some scope to go on a claim a decent handicap somewhere this season. The form of the race should work out very well. The horse that I fancied, the favourite Some Legend was a big let down but it would probably be worth giving him another try as he appeared to empty out rapidly after making a move that looked. I do wonder whether the winner could ever be considered for the Grand National.

Hotel Hilimar made up for defeat last time out to score pretty easily in the maiden hurdle. The race was by no means hotly contested but it was a fair maiden and the horse could do more than it did. There was little to make me get really carried away with the winner but I’d imagine he is better than the bare performance and they really need to look for a fair novice engagement next time.

The winner of the handicap hurdle was Dolphin Bay. Unraced over hurdles for over a year and stepping into his first handicap, he narrowly defeated The Colt King who also appeared to be appreciating the step into handicap company. Made favourite they clearly thought that the horse was ready to win after being fairly consistent in recent runs on the flat. Barry Geraghty was booked also indicating that they had presumably planned this to go well. Quite where they go next is hard to anticipate, but there were some consistent runners in behind so another win may be on the cards.