Meeting Review: Leopardstown, January 11th

Positives: Coscorrig is a mare that just has a really nice way of doing things, jumping boldly from the front and daring those in behind to keep with her. In the end she probably set the 2m1f beginners chase up for the strong staying Majestic Concorde who was a 2-miler on the flat. The 6yo has only one way of running (choke-out!) but it’s a matter of time before one of these maiden chase falls her way and she always offers the option of getting out in-running. A return to the bare 2m and faster ground would be an advantage.

Negatives: While his chase debut second to Made In Taipan was encouraging, Jaamid just hasn’t gone on in 4 starts since and is becoming a professional loser. He’s won just once since April 2007 and has a disappointing overall strike-rate of 4 wins from 34 starts; the 7yo looks short of any sort of speed in a finish. Neither of Tony Martin’s runners in the Pierse Hurdle makes much appeal as horses to follow, albeit for different reasons. Robin Du Bois is simply over-rated; little he’s done recently suggests he can win off a mark of a mark of 118 and is best left alone despite the public perception that he’s a well-handicapped horse. Psycho was, and possibly still is, a well-treated horse but reassessment after his narrow defeat in the Pierse is likely to see him upped to a rating well into the 130s (his last winning mark was 99) and he will racing off a mark significantly higher in England where he is likely to be seen in the coming months. There was little doubt that he offered value at around 7/1 in the morning here but he’s been an unlucky horse in 3 of his last 4 starts and the bookies love nothing more – the 8yo will be priced up accordingly in his next few starts.

Pointers: Financial Reward brought the best recent form to the table in the Grade 2 novice chase having won a stronger event at the same level last time and on the face of things his effort in finishing fourth was below-par. However, there’s every chance that Willie Mullins’ runner was inconvenienced by racing this way around – his form figures on left-handed tracks over jumps now read:42826034 – while his right-handed figures are an altogether better:12132290141. I wouldn’t have backed Schindlers Hunt with bad money in the reduced trip Leopardstown Chase (definitely an improvement, there are more than enough staying handicaps chases and a dearth of classy events over shorter) but he proved Paddy Flood’s assessment that he needed a step up in trip totally correct. This win brought his Leopardstown figures to an impressive:23111351 and the Foxrock venue seems to bring him to life without fail. I wouldn’t quibble with anyone’s assessment of Badgerlaw as a dodge; his lifetime record of 3 wins from 22 starts confirms as much. However, he is a horse that likes decent ground and this third in the Pertemps Qualifier brought his record on ground faster than yielding to soft to:2222112242PF3. A winner is yet to emerge from the novice handicap hurdle won by Ross Accord at the Christmas meeting here but I still suspect the form is strong; the third, fifth and seventh have all gone very close since, finding only in-form rivals Sky Captain and Mission Possible too good. The winner is of obvious interest but his connections mean he’s never going to be a big price – a better representative of the form may prove to be Pistol Flash. John Mulhern’s mare impressed on her first run for a year and has enough form from 2007 to say that a mark of 102 will allow her to win races. The 4yo bumper provided a boil-over with Tornedo Shay winning but I wouldn’t yet give up on Ragtime, a well-fancied contender from the Eddie Hales yard. His trainer holds an excellent record in his race (his runners have figures of:218011 since 2000) and Enquiring Mind was one that bounced back from a poor run in this event to beat De Valira on his next start. I’m sure the ideal scenario for Hales was the horse would win and be sold to England at an expensive price but there’s every chance he didn’t act on the rain-softened ground – 3 of his 4 siblings wanted it on top.