Tony Keenan had a 4/1 winner on Friday and he looks ahead to today's action at Limerick where he has a bet at a big price.
Irish racing tips: Saturday December 28
0.5pts e.w Embittered in Limerick 2.15 at 22/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4)
The stable form of Willie Mullins has turned out to be a surprising talking point of the Christmas racing period and it might be worth putting some numbers on it; for the month of December, but not including Christmas, he had 21 winners from 76 runners (27.6% strikerate) while he is three winners from 47 runners (6.4% strikerate) over the past two days.
The winners came at 4/6 in a maiden hurdle, 11/4 in a bumper and 2/1 in a handicap hurdle for mares, and perhaps his horses are still taking a run after a dry period, or just as likely this is a small sample and things will revert to his mean strikerate over the next two days. Backers of his horses are certainly getting some bigger prices than expected this morning.
It is still hard to countenance Mullins not winning the Savills Chase at 2:35 though each-way punters might be seeing this as less the pure match it appeared since entries. Galopin Des Champs has always been excellent around Leopardstown though he may want a stiffer test at this point in his career and the potential of Fact To File seems a little underplayed in the market.
Mullins is an unlikely winner of the Savills Hurdle (2:00) with only Asterion Forlonge running for him; he is having his first start in 240 days and tends to find at least one too good at this level. Home By The Lee is a worthy favourite and looked on good terms with himself when winning the Lismullen Hurdle last month, travelling sweetly and winning with a bit in hand.
This near-three mile trip might be further than Bob Olinger wants and Hewick could prove the biggest danger to Home By The Lee. He is a top chaser reverting to hurdles, but by no means a failure in that code having made the frame in his last two runs at Grade 1 level over fences, and also has some classy recent hurdle form outside of Ireland, having finishing a close second in the Grande Course de Haies d'Auteuil in May. Perhaps the fence-like nature of the hurdles in that Auteuil race made it more of a test but the ground has come right for him.
The rest of the Leopardstown card looks difficult. Chances can be given to the likes of Stay Gold and Jolie Jewel in the Mercedes Benz South Dublin Handicap Hurdle at 12:50 and Fortunedefortunata in the Pertemps Network Handicap Hurdle at 3:05 but my selection is EMBITTERED in the Campion Insurance Tim Duggan Memorial Handicap Chase, the Limerick 2:15.
Eric McNamara had an excellent period in late summer and autumn this year, and after a lull has come back to form at Christmas, two winners on December 26th and three placed horses yesterday, while Embittered is the type he does well with, some of his better horses lately being ones he acquired cheaply from other yards that he brought back to form like Real Steel and Falco Blitz.
Embittered won a Listed handicap chase at Navan by nine lengths off 137 last December when trained by Gordon Elliott and while he didn’t show much after that, he dropped markedly in the weights (currently 134) and ran better than his finishing position of eighth in the Munster National on his last run.
Racing over a trip that stretches him, he moved into contention from rear before flattening out late, suggesting that there might be another day in him down in distance. I had thought that day would be at Navan again earlier this month but he was not put in that race and my hope is that there has been no issue with him since and instead this meeting was the target for the trainer.
Preview posted at 0900 GMT on 28/12/24
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