O’Brien hoping rain stays away

Joseph O’Brien is hoping conditions at Leopardstown do not deteriorate ahead of Battle Of Marengo’s highly-anticipated return to action in tomorrow’s PW McGrath Memorial Ballysax Stakes.

A winner of three of his four juvenile starts, Battle Of Marengo ploughed through the Curragh mud when signing off for the year in the usually informative Beresford Stakes in late September.

However, O’Brien is sure his mount is far more effective on a sounder surface and he would prefer for the ground not to be too testing for Battle Of Marengo’s three-year-old debut.