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Sunday 20 March 2016

Irish Flat Season Begins!



I know I said  I wouldn't be doing any posts for a few weeks but today is the start of the Irish flat season and racing takes place at the Curragh and I just couldn't resist.
The going is currently soft, it's a great meeting and even Mr Fallon turns up in his new post-lets hope he's not too grumpy!
William Buick has been booked to ride Devonshire in the Group 3 at 3.30 and Richard Fahey tests the water and sends over 6 horses with 3 entered in the Tote Irish Lincolnshire at 4.55 and the last race on the card looks an interesting maiden. 

The one that I'm interested in though is Patrick in the 3.15 - The St Patricks Festival Handicap over 6f. He's at the top of the handicap but Adam McNamara takes off a useful 7lbs and he's the first of my sprinters to follow to run on the turf. He has already run twice on the AW so there should be no problems fitness wise and he's open to further improvement having only run 10 times and is rated 89.
He's well drawn in stall 12 of the 14 runners and hopefully he can bag a good position near the rail. He ran a good race in a decent Class 3 handicap at Goodwood in July, his last turf start, when he was a slightly unlucky 4th beaten three quarters of a length after finishing strongly under Tony Hamilton.
The time before that he had also finished very strongly at Carlisle over the stiff 5f despite running a bit green.
The next two in the betting Laganore and Katimavik having been running over a mile so they may be lacking speed in this this 6f sprint. You would have to be wary though about last years winner Bubbly Bellini off a 1lb higher mark as he's a much better drawn this time in stall 13 - stall 2 last year but that race was run at a sedate pace and this will be his 105th race and the going may not be soft enough in any event. That said he has the assistance of Declan McDonough who has steered him to his last 5 wins. Lurking down the bottom of the handicap however on a mark of 70 is Kevin Condon's Shanghai Beauty drawn in stall 14 and she could be open to some improvement although she comes here fresh and the stable haven't had many runners this year but she might be the ew value at 14/1.

Bets
Patrick - 1 point ew @ 5/1 with Betvictor