Jump in for Junior
A thorough stayer, he has proved a good money-spinner for connections and is a horse who might well have a real future at this game. The seven-year-old put up some decent efforts at the back-end of last year, winning three races in-a-row over flights, including dead-heating with the smart Earth Magic at Thurles, before going under by a short head to Parsons Pistol at Cork in December.
The selection had a run in France 23 days ago, in a Grade 1 over hurdles at Auteuil. He was out of contention when pulled up after the 14th, but the very soft surface then was a major minus.
Only four are set to face the starter in the Mike Cronin Race, but, rather uncomfortably, none of them can be safely discounted.
It’s possible Valentine Hill won’t get the 11 furlongs, while the maiden winner, Cassique Lady, simply may not be good enough.
That leaves Theocritus and Dirar as, possibly, the principals. Theocritus was beaten a head by The Fist Of God at Naas and that was a reasonable effort.
The final nod, however, falls on Dirar, who has been mixing it with decent horses all season. He was in Listed company last time when fifth to Dress Rehearsal at Limerick.
The performances of Dermot Weld’s Majestic Concorde and Noble Crusader, in the Kielys’ Electrical Race, will be of particular importance with Galway in mind.
Preference now, though, is for Tom Cooper’s Total Excitement, who produced a career-best when runner-up behind Uimhiraceathair in a valuable Curragh bumper in May.
John Murphy’s Tuscan Evening is impossible to oppose in the Irish Stallion Farms’ EBF Fillies Maiden.
Her second, but subsequently disqualified and placed fourth, to Halfway To Heaven in the Irish 1000 Guineas at the Curragh and then seventh to Lush Lashes in the Coronation at Royal Ascot, put the three-year-old in a different league to this opposition.
