Willie Mullins takes us through his team at Fairyhouse on Sunday including a very interesting chasing debutant.
SUNDAY RUNNERS
FEIGH – 12.50 Fairyhouse
Feigh’s jumping still needs a little bit of improvement so we’ll see how she goes. If she ran in the first three here I’d be very happy.
BROOKLYNN GLORY – 1.20 Fairyhouse
I don’t think the good ground suited Brooklynn Glory at Fairyhouse at Easter. I think back to more testing conditions will help and she jumps well enough at home, I think. We’ll be expecting a big run out of her.
BLACKBOW – 2.20 Fairyhouse
We’ve left the hood off Blackbow for the first time in a while and I think he might well need a longer trip nowadays, but this is a valuable handicap so we’re letting him take his chance.
EL BARRA – 2.50 Fairyhouse
His form with Blue Lord has worked out very well and we’re expecting him to go close if he can improve on that form.
SAINT SAM – 2.50 Fairyhouse
Saint Sam does everything right at home, he has some very good form to his name over hurdles. He’s obviously jumping well as Paul has elected to ride him over El Barra. There are so few beginners chases for these horses that we have to run them together.
GRIVEI – 3.50 Fairyhouse
We have a nice horse by Muhtathir out of a mare called Stourza, whose dam was Grivette – a mare who beat Hurricane Fly and Quevega at Auteuil. That’s a good French pedigree and he goes well at home. He’s a horse we’re looking forward to getting out.
RECENT WINNERS AND ENERGUMENE
Looking back over the last week, I thought Danny Mullins gave STORMY IRELAND a fantastic ride to win the Relkeel Hurdle at Cheltenham.
BLUE LORD seemed to improve and jumping has settled him down, I was pleased with him at Naas.
BRONN is a big, strong, green individual that will improve with every run. He’ll improve going out in trip as well, when he gets a real test of stamina.
DINOBLUE is a half-sister to Blue Sari and she won very nicely at Clonmel. It was only a maiden hurdle but she looks graded material already.
We ran CASH BACK to give him a bit of confidence having had a chequered career over fences. He’s a horse with a good rating and it showed as he took on a small but good field of horses.
In the same race we took a chance on running CLASSIC GETAWAY, but there was no shame in being beaten by a horse rated over 150 over fences. He’ll be fine going into maiden or novice company next time.
Finally, ENERGUMENE seems in good form. We’ll see how things progress but we plan to go to Ascot with him for the SBK Clarence House Chase on January 22 and we’re hoping to fulfil that engagement.