Marina looks superstar in the making
Glencove Marina has always been a good horse, right from the moment he first set foot on a racecourse when winning a bumper at Thurles in February of 2006, but I have taken a particular interest in him ever since a conversation with Ruby Walsh at the Punchestown Festival of last year.
In March of 2007, Glencove Marina returned to Thurles to make his debut over flights and duly won a bad maiden unextended by 16 lengths. He then stepped way up in class in a Grade 2 at the Fairyhouse Easter meeting. Despite a technique which lacked any sort of fluency, he was beaten less than two lengths into third behind De Valira.
Glencove Marina then moved up half a mile in trip, to two and a half, and into Grade 1 company at Punchestown.
Now anyone can be wise following an event and racing is littered with boring after-dinner speakers. But the informal chat with Ruby took place prior to the Land Rover Champion Novice Hurdle at Punchestown and it is important to record that.
He strongly indicated that Glencove Marina could well be a live Arkle candidate at Cheltenham come the following March and this about a horse who still had it all to prove over hurdles and who was a long way from jumping a fence in public for the first time.
Shortly afterwards, of course, Glencove Marina proceded to win that Land Rover race by five lengths, after being left clear when Catch Me, under pressure in second, but still holding every chance, departed at the final flight.
It was a terrific display, because Catch Me arrived in the form of his life, fresh from a highly creditable third behind Massini’s Maguire and Tidal Bay in the Ballymore Properties Hurdle at Cheltenham.
In his regular Examiner column, of course, Walsh has subsequently, on more than one occasion, waxed lyrical about a horse he clearly holds in very high regard.
Glencove Marina enjoyed a good school around when making a satisfactory debut over fences at Navan in the middle of December.
He had his critics subsequently, but it was a very solid start and his jumping was especially impressive. Nevertheless, the Grade 2 at Leopardstown was an entirely different matter and to see him absolutely trounce far better rivals than he met at Navan in that fashion was breathtaking.
He’s a horse who has just about got it all. He seems to handle any ground, definitely possesses buckets of pace and, indeed, may be equipped with limitless stamina as well.
He got two and a half miles easily over hurdles and certainly wasn’t showing the slightest signs of stopping at the end of two miles and five at Leopardstown.
Mullins now has the choice of going down the Arkle or SunAlliance routes. We will leave that to him, but it doesn’t take a massive imagination to envisage Glencove Marina being touted as a Cheltenham Gold Cup horse of the future.
* TONY MARTIN is some man to beat the handicapper. His Psycho did it again at Leopardstown on Sunday.
The only race Psycho had ever previously won was a handicap hurdle at Limerick back in March. A relatively easy-to-back 4-1 shot, he stormed home by eight lengths.
You couldn’t say the display got under the handicapper’s radar and he raised Psycho by a whopping 17lbs.
He wasn’t seen again until reappearing at Punchestown in November, when a reasonably promising sixth behind Indian Pace.
The off-course bookmakers took no chances with him on Sunday morning and Psycho was on offer at around 9-4, which seemed tight enough.
But they were swinging out of the trees to get on and he was a 7-4 shot by the time the tape was released.
Psycho won in a canter, by five and a half lengths, and the bet of the week is that the handicapper will be having another right dig at him.
* LIMERICK, which did trojan work in very difficult conditions to provide the industry with four days racing at Christmas, finally succumbed to the dreadful weather when losing a meeting last Thursday.
Anyway, on page two of the Irish Field newspaper on Saturday a rather innocuous paragraph, referring to Limerick, may have escaped your attention.
This is what it said: “Horse Racing Ireland is searching for a suitable date on which to reschedule last Thursday’s cancelled meeting, but a spokesman for HRI indicated that any new date was unlikely to be in the near future.”
Now I think it only fair that those of us getting a living from this great game wish HRI all the success in the world in their ‘search!’
