Today's Tips: Bonny Kate can make stamina tell in Irish Grand National
It looks a wide-open renewal of the race, but stamina will be key and Bonny Kate, who has that in spades, can land the spoils for Noel Meade.
The mare is in great form, having won three in a row over fences, including a Grade 2 at Limerick last time.
While she may not get it all her own way up front, she jumps well, stays well, has plenty of scope for improvement, and doesn’t look too harshly treated off a mark of 137.
She is preferred to Killer Crow, who could represent some each-way value.
The nap goes to Slowmotion, in the opening Grade 2 Juvenile Hurdle. Trained by Joseph O’Brien, who won the Triumph Hurdle with Ivanovich Gorbatov, the mare made her debut for the stable at Limerick recently and looked a certain winner until pegged back by Never Again in the dying strides.
She was conceding weight, experience and race-fitness to the winner then, and ought to be much better this time.
Receiving weight from most of her rivals, and proven on soft ground, she can score at the expense of Tocororo and Newberry New.
Kim Bailey’s Emily Gray can successfully concede weight to all of her rivals in the Grade 3 Mares’ Novice Chase.
The eight-year-old has faced some pretty stiff competition in her seven races over fences and has only been out of the first two on one of those occasions – when third behind subsequent JLT Novices’ Chase winner Black Hercules at Warwick in January.
A game sort, who stays well over this two-and-a-half-mile trip, she should prove too smart for her rivals, headed by Uranna. The last-named ran Bonny Kate to two and a quarter lengths last time, and could be on an upward curve.
Blow By Blow made a fine impression when winning his bumper at the second time of asking, and Willie Mullins’ imposing five-year-old can follow up in the numerically-small but cracking-looking bumper at Fairyhouse.
The form of that victory was franked by runner-up Jett, who won a decent maiden hurdle next time, and the fact Blow By Blow receives 3lbs from the classy Death Duty swings the verdict firmly in his favour.
The ground should be ideal for the selection, and he can take this en route to better things.
There are three flat races, three hunter chases and two bumpers at Mallow, where Barbeque can reverse previous form with Enter The Red in the five-furlong handicap. A course winner, Tommy Stack’s horse copes well with testing conditions, and can get her season off to a winning start.
Salsify is the class act amongst the hunters, and will be a short price to take the Jack Tyner Memorial. Rodger Sweeney’s horse is readily preferred to Wish Ye Didn’t, while Gordon Elliott’s Carrig Cathal gets the nod in the two-three bumper, and Robert Tyner’s Dont Kick Nor Bite can take the finale.
* A pipe band-led Easter Rising commemorative parade will leave Cork Racecourse car park this morning at 11.45am and proceed to the parade ring for a flag-raising ceremony and reading of the Proclamation. There will also be an exhibition of Easter Rising artefacts and photographs, and traditional music will entertain the crowd for the afternoon.
