group race this evening in Ireland

Best race of the day in the U,.K., and Ireland is this evening´s Group Three Silver Flash Stakes for 2yo fillies over 7 furlongs at 19.45 CET at Leopardstown. Aidan O´Brien has won this for the past 3 seasons, including last year with the top-class Maybe, but we will be surprised of his sole runner today Snow Queen, with son Joseph i n the saddle, is good enough, as she was well beaten on her debut and faces strong opposition from True Verdict (David Wachman/ Wayne Lordan), runner-up on all 3 starts so far and also Coolmore-owned, and the 3 unbeaten fillies Harasiya (John Oxx/ Johnny Murtagh), Rawaaq (Dermot Weld/ Pat Smullen) and Roseraie (Kevin Prendergast/ Chris Hayes). It is hard to choose between them, but we have a slight preference for Harasiya, as the Aga Khan´s filly was quite impressive on her debut over this CD.

Main supporting feature here is the listed race over 1 3/4 miles at 21.55. Aidan O´Brien has 2 of the 6 runners here, Betterbetterbetter (Colm O´Donoghue) and Demurely (David McCabe), both 3yo fillies also entered in Sunday´s Irish Oaks,while Jessica Harrington also has 2 runners Bob le Beau (Kevin Manning) and Steps to Freedom (Fran Berry), but we prefer Galileo´s Chooice (Dermot Weld/ Pat Smullen), who won a Group Three here over 10 furlongs last year; in typical Weld fashion, he is also a smart hurdler and last ran at the Cheltenham Festival. He is probably being aimed at one of the top events at the Galway Festival in a foirtnight´s time, but can take this en route to the Ballybrit.

Another race of interest is the 2yo maiden over a mile - one of the first of the year over this trip- at 19.25. The O´Brien´s took this last year with Camelot so their runner Nevis must be treated with the greatest respect. He was only 4th on his debut - and behind Mister Aviation (Tommy Stack/ Lordan) who is in the line-up again, but that was on dreadfiul ground and he is now expected to show dramatic improvement.

Also in Ireland today we have the fourth and final day of the Killarney meeting with another mixed card, 3 flat races, 3 over hurdles and a bumper. The hurdles races are the most interesting events and we expect the very promising Thomas Edison (Tony Martin/ Mark Walsh) to win the novice hurdle at 16.55, while Zerashan (Dessie Hughes/ Davy Russell), a very easy winner at Downpatrick last week, can follow up under a penalty in the handicap hurdle an hour later.