Our Fran Berry with his main fancy for Monday's Boylesports Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse.
It may pay to concentrate on two teams in Monday’s Boylesports Irish Grand National.
The first one is the raiding party from the UK. Last year Haiti Couleurs provided them with a first success in the race for over the decade and off the back of what happened in the handicaps at the Cheltenham Festival, it’s no wonder a strong squad heads over this time around.
You have to take the chances of the improving The Jukebox Kid very seriously while One Big Bang and Monbeg Genius come here off the back of good runs at Prestbury Park and tick plenty of boxes themselves.
The other team to keep an eye on is the unexposed novice chasers. The qualifying criteria is a horse must run four times over fences to be able to run and a host of these have done just that.
Soldier In Milan is one. After beating another leading fancy for this in Kiss Will at Punchestown in February, he found himself with plenty to do on his fourth run behind C’Est Ta Chance at Thurles in early March.
Given now that race panned out for him he looks a major player back up in distance, heading here as a progressive seven-year-old.
For team Mullins it must be significant that Paul Townend has opted for Kiss Will while I can see Joystick outrunning his odds for them.
But my fancy is SHOWURAPPRECIATION.
JP McManus have five in the race at this stage and outgoing first jockey Mark Walsh is still to win an Irish National. You’d presume he had a choice of rides here and opted for the selection.
He only has 10st 7lb to carry and is already a similar price to owner-mates Better Times Ahead and Goraibhmaithagat, the latter the mount of Harry Cobden.
Showurappreciation is on a four-timer and can potentially improve again as he steps up in distance and Jonathan Sweeney is a trainer who ticks over at a very healthy strike-rate.
When he pitches a horse in at this level you sit up and take notice and I think he can enjoy a landmark success on Monday and the man in the saddle tick one of the remaining boxes on his CV in Ireland.
Just keep an eye on the weather and ground over the next couple of days though. The forecast is relatively dry and windy and Fairyhouse can become a speed-favouring track, even at this distance.
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