Fairyhouse: third and final day

Another strong card on the final day of the Fairyhouse Easter Festival which has a late start at 17.00 CET. The leading actors in the opening Grade Three 4yo hurdle all ran in the Fred Winter at Cheltenham, in which Edeymi (Tony Martin/ Andrew Lynch) finished an excellent second of 24, with Arnaud (Charlie Byrnes/ Davy Russell) a close fifth and Sportsmaster (Edward O´Grady/ Tony McCoy) and Gorgeous Sixty (Willie Mullins/ Ruby Walsh) both more than 40 lengths behind. We see no reason to doubt the reliability of this form and expect Edeymi to win today. Half an hour later the Grade Three mares chase also feature several runners that have met this year. Belle Brook (M. Cullen/ Paul Townend) fell last time when still leading in a Limerick event in which several of the opponents would have finished behind her. If she stays on her feet, she must have a good chance, but we prefer Shop DJ (Peter Fahey/ Davy Russell) who is extremely consistent and ran a good race at Cheltenham when a close fifth to Quevega.

There follow two valuable handicaps, in both of which we expect to see the colours of leading owner JP McManus - already enjoying a successful meeting - victorious. He has 5 runners in the 2 mile hurdle race at 18.00 with McCoy riding the lightly-raced The Way we Were for Edward O´Grady. The danger could be the 4yo filly Ozeta (Nicky Henderson/ David Casey) in the same colours, who runs off an extremely low weight.

McManus has 3 of the 10 runners in the 2 mile 1 furlong chase at 18.30 and we think McCoy has made the right choice again; he partners German-bred Shot from the Hip, a Monsun gelding who has been running well in good company. Top-weight Bellvano (Nicky Henderson/ Paul Carberry) is also German-bred and won at Cheltenham, but faces a stiff task here.