Smart hurdlers at Thurles

Easily the best race today is the 3 mile hurdle race at Thurles at 17.30 CET. This has only 6 runners, but two of them are the Willie Mullins stars Mikael d´Haguenet (Mikey Fogarty) and Mourad (David Casey). The jockey bookings are explained by the fact that the stable´s top two jockeys are both injured, but Fogarty is clearly a rising star and Casey certainly competent enough. Both horses were stable stars a couple of years ago, running against the likes of Hurricane Fly and Big Bucks, but it could be that their best days are behind them now; however they should certainly dominate these opponents and are well clear on official ratings.´They met 2 years ago in the Grade Two Boyne Hurdle when Mourad gave 2lbs and a six lengths beating to Mikael and it is possible that this result will be repeated today. Off The Charts (Dessie Hughes/Mark Walsh) could be best of the others; he has won his last 2 races but needs to improve a lot more to trouble the Mullins runners.

In the U.K. there is jumps racing at Chepstow and Ludlow and all-weather cards at Wolverhampton (afternoon) and Kempton (evening), mainly at a very low level. There are also very small fields at Wolverhampton with no race with more than 6 runners; this trend will continue as many trainers now boycott this track because of the poor racing surface.

Tony McCoy rode his 200th winner of the season yesterday and we expect him to continue on the winning trail at Ludlow, where he can score on Farika at 15.20 and Springinherstep at 15.55, both trained by Nicky Henderson, and She Ranks Me at 15.55 for Donald McCain, another trainer whose main jockey is out of action. None of these are likely to pay much however and our potentially more lucrative tips are Parsnip Peter (Tom George/ Paddy Brennan) at 17.40 at Ludlow and Midnight Oscar (Kim Bailey/ Nick Scholfield) an hour earlier at the Welsh track.