Cape Wolfe will relish longer trip
The son of Piccolo made a promising start at the Curragh last month and, the way Lyons trains his horses, there is every reason to believe will build on that.
That Curragh race was won by another Lyons inmate, Bertie Le Belge, who beat Aidan O’Brien’s Cape Clear Island and Cape Wolfe by a length and a quarter and a length and a half.
The selection was doing all of his best work at the end and an extra furlong now should very much play to his strengths.
Feature event is the Group 3 Irish Stallion Farms’ EBF Brownstown Stakes for fillies and mares and this is tricky.
Highest rated is Tommy Stack’s Wannabe Better, successful at Leopardstown 13 days ago, but she could hardly be described as a model of consistency.
The final vote falls on Sparrow, one of two three-year-olds in the contest, now that Aidan O’Brien has hit a rich vein of form.
Sparrow is 7lbs wrong at the weights with Wannabe Better and that is an obvious worry, but she does have a lot of scope for improvement and, as a daughter of Oasis Dream, is likely to revel in the quick conditions.
Sparrow hinted at much better to come when third to Majestic Queen and Joyeuse at Leopardstown last time and travelling another furlong now can only help her cause.
Jim Bolger’s News At Six is a confident choice in the Ratoath Garden Centre Rated Race, confined to horses with a mark of 80 or less.
News At Six is now rated 87, but was only 72 when entered and so is able to run. Meeting a fast surface for the first time, he shaped like a horse with a future when scoring at the Curragh last Friday night.
