All eyes on Aranleigh on jumping debut
The five-year-old is certainly a high-class horse in the making and a decent round of jumping should see him prove too strong for this opposition.
He began by taking a Fairyhouse bumper back in January, slamming Mad Fish by five lengths. Mad Fish carried a big reputation into that contest, went off at 4-7, but the selection ran away from him in the closing stages to score by five lengths.
Aranleigh then produced a cracking performance in the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham.
Despite enjoying far from a clear passage in the straight, he was beaten less than three lengths into third behind Cork All Star.
A place and a length and a half in front of him was Sophocles and James Leavy’s charge is the choice to also make a winning start over flights in the Christmas Party Race Evening Maiden Hurdle.
You can never be overly confident about any horse first time over jumps, so the nap falls on Badgerlaw in the Irish Stallion Farms’ EBF Novice Chase.
You wouldn’t fancy having your last euro on him either, but at least Jessica Harrington’s seven-year-old has two outings over fences to his credit, behind Santa’s Son at Punchestown and Naples at Down Royal.
Feature event at Navan tomorrow is the richly-endowed williamhill.ie Troytown Handicap Chase and the nod here falls on Merdeka. It never quite happened for him last season, as he was initially hampered by poor technique and then seemed to lose his way as the campaign progressed.
Merdeka made a very promising reappearance, though, when runner-up to stable companion Breaking Silence at Navan, and could now start to fulfil what looked to be unlimited potential when novice hurdling.
No less than 30 are set to face the starter in the William Hill 1800 333 555 EBF Maiden Hurdle, but undaunted Mr Muji is made the bet of the day.
Early mistakes didn’t help his cause when beaten by Spaceman at Tipperary last month and, buckets of runners notwithstanding, this is a weak race.
The improving Rathmore Castle can continue on the upgrade in the Grade 3 Bank Of Ireland Monksfield Novice Hurdle.
The dual bumper winner had little to beat when justifying odds of 1-4 at Navan, but went about his business in style and this will tell us just how good he really is!
Possessing an abundance of courage is not a charge you could level at Charlie Yardbird, but having a first pop over fences could be a good time to catch him and he gets the vote in the williamhillpoker.com EBF Beginners Chase.
