O’Grady may aim Shot at National
A Grade One winner as a novice hurdler, the JP McManus-owned nine-year-old sprung a 14-1 surprise when in the hands of Mark Walsh he accounted for Another Ambition by all of eight and a half lengths in the extended two-and-a-half-mile Ladbrokes Handicap Chase.
O’Grady said: “He seems fine since. He’ll certainly get an entry in the Kerry National but there is a conditions race there (at the Listowel Festival) as well.
“I’d suppose the fact that he’s gone up 8Ib in the weights means that he’ll probably get into the handicap. He got balloted out of the Galway Plate but I’d imagine that he’d get into the Kerry National with a bit of luck – it’s certainly a possibility.
“He won well but he beat a 12-year-old (Another Ambition) and I’d say when you boil it all down to brass tacks, that’s what he beat. If you analyse it you could pick holes in it and you’d have to say it was a weak contest rather than a strong contest.
“Either it was the ground or he was out of sorts on his last couple of runs — he hadn’t run since May – so it was a good comeback really.
“I was going to run him in Galway but as I said he got balloted in the Galway Plate and then I was going to run him on the Friday (in the Galway Blazers) but the ground was too heavy for that.
“I was well pleased with him the other day I have to say but it would be nice if he could keep going forward from that.
“He (Walsh) rode him very positively and did exactly what we’d hoped for so 10 out of 10 to him.
“That was only two and a half miles the other day but they did go very fast and he did seem to be staying very well at the end of it so you’d have to be hopeful that he’d have a crack at three miles.
“I’d think that Monsun’s (Shot From The Hip’s sire) as such don’t like extremes of going. They go on soft ground but I think you’re talking summer soft as opposed to winter soft.
“This is the first-time he got nice ground the other day. Killarney seemed to get it pretty right – it was nice – just enough of an ease in it to make it good ground – good jumping ground.
“I think that helped him too but he was a previous course winner there. He won there last May.
“Maybe that was a help as well, I don’t know. He’s handled it twice, which is good.
“I’d hope that Listowel being a flat track would suit him as well.
“As well as all that he had a tongue-strap on the other day. It was no big hindrance to him anyway.”
