The Irish Angle: Day 4 tips from Donn McClean

What a difference a day made,

Twenty-four little hours

Brought the sun and the flowers

Where there used to be rain.

It wasn’t that the horses ran poorly on Tuesday and Wednesday, most of them actually ran very well.  Crossbars and posts, it was just that the net wouldn’t bulge.

Then Thursday morning dawned, and Team Mullins ran riot. They scored four, Yorkhill and Un De Sceaux and Nichols Canyon and Let’s Dance and, in the twinkling of the time that it takes to play two football matches, the universe had corrected itself.  

Interlace the Mullins Quartet with Pat Kelly’s Pertemps Final win with Presenting Percy and Noel Meade’s Road To Respect in the Brown Advisory Plate, and suddenly there are 14 Irish-trained winners on the board at the end of Day Three. The British have to win all seven singles matches on the final day just to tie.

It could be an Irish Gold Cup too on Friday. Djakadam has taken over as favourite on the crest of the Willie Mullins wave, but that is as it probably should have been anyway. Second to Coneygree in the 2015 Gold Cup as a mere six-year-old, he didn’t have the ideal preparation for the race last year – he had that crashing fall in the Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham in January – yet he still managed to finish second behind Don Cossack.

This year, everything has reportedly gone smoothly. An impressive winner of the John Durkan Chase on his debut this season, he could only finish third behind Outlander and Don Poli in the Lexus Chase at Leopardstown’s Christmas Festival.  But that race came up just two and a half weeks after the John Durkan. It may have been quick enough after his seasonal debut.

We haven’t seen Susannah Ricci’s horse since, but that has been the plan. Skip the Irish Gold Cup and take him to Cheltenham a fresh horse. It’s a legitimate plan.

From a betting perspective, however, Sizing John is more interesting at a bigger price. High-class over two miles as a novice hurdler and as a novice chaser for Henry de Bromhead, the Midnight Legend gelding has continued his progression this season for Jessica Harrington and for stepping up in trip.

He stayed on strongly over two and a half miles at Thurles in January to land the Kinloch Brae Chase, beating Sub Lieutenant into second place, and Sub Lieutenant upheld that form with a cracking run to finish second to Un De Sceaux in the Ryanair Chase on Thursday.

Then Sizing John stepped up on that when he stepped up in trip last time and landed the Irish Gold Cup.

He has an extra two and a half furlongs to go in the Cheltenham Gold Cup but being by Midnight Legend and out of a mare who won three times over two miles and five furlongs on soft ground at Sedgefield, you can argue that his breeding does not hold him back in terms of stamina.

Also, he stayed on strongly at the end of that three miles at Leopardstown - albeit off a fairly sedate early pace - up the hill on soft ground, to get the better of Empire Of Dirt and Don Poli.

More importantly, he was a high-class two-mile chaser, and he is only seven, so he has plenty of scope for progression as a staying chaser. As such, he has a similar profile to previous Gold Cup winners Best Mate, Kicking King, War Of Attrition and Kauto Star. All two-mile chasers the season before they won their (first) Gold Cups; all seven years old when they did. He is a super jumper, he has top Cheltenham Festival form - third in a Supreme Novices' Hurdle, second in an Arkle - and he is at his best on good ground. He could out-run his odds by a fair way.

The ground is not going to be as soft at Cheltenham on Friday as it was at Leopardstown when Mega Fortune won the Spring Juvenile Hurdle last month, but it is still going to be on the easy side of good at best, and that may be easy enough for Mega Fortune to run his race.

The Gordon Elliott-trained gelding was very good that day at Leopardstown under a fine aggressive ride from Davy Russell. Racing in cheekpieces for the first time, he kept on well up the hill to beat Bapaume and Dinaria Des Obeaux well, and he clocked a good time.

It is difficult to evaluate the respective strengths of the Irish and British juvenile hurdlers, but that Spring Juvenile Hurdle has produced four of the last five winners of the Triumph Hurdle. Chris Jones’ horse is tough and progressive and talented, and he will be well suited by the stamina test that the Triumph Hurdle represents for juveniles.

He has drifted in the market since it initially reopened after the final declarations, probably because of the prospect of goodish ground, to a price that could underestimate his chance of winning the race. There is a slight concern about the ground, but that concern is now more than factored into his odds.

For more of Donn's thoughts visit www.donnmcclean.com

Money back as a free bet if you back a loser in the Triumph Hurdle!