Maguire has grounds for Wave of optimism
The mare will arrive at Prestbury Park seeking a four-timer after battling to a Graded-race hat-trick when scoring in bottomless ground at Gowran Park in January.
And with the prospect of a soft-ground Cheltenham Festival increasing with every millimetre of rain hitting the Gloucestershire turf, Maguire feels his charge can play a major role next week.
“She’s in great form and I’m absolutely delighted with her,” he said.
“She had a nice break after Gowran and she was good and tough that day on horrible ground. She stayed on well and pulled clear again after the last.
“She doesn’t have to make it (the pace) but she has a lot of enthusiasm and she has a long stride and handles soft ground, so why wait on her when she gets into a rhythm?
“But if something was quick enough to take her along on soft ground, then so be it.”
Although Conor O’Dwyer took over the reins to score last time, Maguire is hoping to have Timmy Murphy – who partnered her to two previous successes – back on board at Cheltenham.
“I hope Timmy will be available to ride her. Timmy rode her at Leopardstown and Navan and before that he couldn’t make it across to Gowran but we had a super-sub in Conor,” he told At The Races.
“It’s a very open race and I suppose there will be a lot of lads thinking they have a chance of winning.
“Even if Black Jack Ketchum does run, I couldn’t see how connections could be confident going to Cheltenham with a run like that behind him, so everybody’s entitled to think they have a chance.”
Celestial Wave is as short as 6-1 with Ladbrokes for the World Hurdle.
Henry Daly is also happy with his leading Ladbrokes World Hurdle fancy, Mighty Man, but will be keeping a nervous eye on the weather in the build-up to the Cheltenham Festival.
The seven-year-old has not been seen since landing his first success at the highest level when fending off Lough Derg in the Long Walk Hurdle last December.
Daly’s stable star had subsequent Cleeve Hurdle winner Blazing Bailey back in fourth that day and is as short as 9-2 with Coral for the three-mile championship.
And while the Shropshire handler has always stated his charge is not at his best on soft going, he will not rush into any decisions until the picture becomes clearer regarding the ground at Prestbury Park.
Daly said: “He’s fine and I simply don’t know at the moment as it’s just too far away to make our minds up.
“Everything’s fine and we’ll just have to see what the ground is like and then we’ll see what happens.”
