Fred proves a handicap snip
The Eddie Lynam trained four-year-old, raised a whopping 20lb. for his runaway win in a Cork maiden on Saturday, was carrying only a mandatory 5lb. penalty and, 15lb. ‘well-in’, gave him supporters few worries, despite his customary tardy start.
Soon tracking the leaders under Keagan Latham, the Fasliyev gelding challenged with more than two furlongs to race and, soon in front, forged clear to beat Shiramiyna by four and a quarter lengths.
In typical style, Lynam, declared, “That was his redundancy payment — I don’t know what to do with him now. He went up 20lb. for Cork, so I had to run him again. For now, I won’t rule anything in or out. I have it in my head to put him away, but he’ll have to come back sometime. Maybe he’d make a nice hurdler.”
Aidan O’Brien dominated the rest of the card completing a double with Frontier and Tower Rock, both in the colours of Michael Tabor, in the two-year-old maidens and following-up with Harrisons Cave, ridden by his son Joseph, in the concluding www.thetote.com/mobile Handicap.
A Galileo colt, noted making late headway on his debut at the Curragh, Frontier landed the www.thetote.com/mobile 2-Y-0 Maiden after a rousing battle with the Jim Bolger trained newcomer Light Heavy, a neck separating the pair at the line. He was Aidan O’Brien’s eighth consecutive winner of the one-mile event.
Frontier was the apparent ‘second string’ of Ballydoyle’s two runners, following hefty support for third-placed Thomasgainsborough (backed from 5/2 to 5/4) and was ridden by Colm O’Donoghue fresh from his globe-trotting exploits over the weekend, which yielded a belated Grade 1 success for Together in Keeneland on Saturday.
O’Donoghue commented: “It’s very soft, very testing out there. Frontier improved from his debut run at the Curragh and he handled conditions well enough. He’s a big, scopey lad, with plenty of improvement in him.”
Seamus Heffernan employed enterprising tactics on Tower Rock in the two-year-old median auction maiden and the strapping Dylan Thomas colt reversed debut form with Diplomat and Macbeth, scoring by three-quarters of a length from that pair.
“He’s a half-brother to Rumpelstiltskin and is the complete opposite — he’s massive,” commented Heffernan. “I fancied him to run well here first time but he was very green and got tired. He was drawn well today and everything was straight-forward.”
