Tipp have enough TNT up top to cover loss of bulldozer Bonner

Not for the first time, an equine metaphor by way of setting the table. Three of tomorrow’s quartet ran on their merits a fortnight ago. Then, there was the horse in the green and white silks. The stewards wouldn’t have had connections up for running a non-trier, but they might have had a quiet word with the jockey about “insufficient effort”.

To which John Kiely would rightly have pointed out, as indeed he has, that his charge was running for the third time on successive weekends and he was obliged to try something different. Case closed. Kiely picked a perfectly adequate team for the task in hand and they performed, well, perfectly adequately. The only thing that went wrong was beyond his control. Cork losing in Ennis.