Bob Olinger back to defend Lismullen Hurdle on day one of Navan Racing Festival
is set to saddle a massive team of 44 horses at this weekend’s Navan Racing Festival, including 11 of the 20 runners lining up for Sunday’s Bar One Troytown Chase. But perhaps the most eye-catching figure of all is the meagre four runners lining up for
Despite those conditions a field of 20 will line up for the €100,000 Troytown prize, with the bulk of them from a single yard. A year ago Elliott saddled 14 in the Troytown, winning it with Coko Beach, his sixth success in the race in the last decade.Irish racing going all ‘béal bocht’ about prizemoney a hard sell ...
Nevertheless, there are plenty star names on show for Irish racing’s latest “festival” theme that began last year when over 8,500 attended the concentration of Navan’s best autumn prizes into a single weekend. With Rachael Blackmore still sidelined by a neck injury sustained in September, the in-form Darragh O’Keeffe rides Bob Olinger for the just a second time. O’Keeffe was on board for Bob Olinger’s winning debut over fences when the world appeared to be at his feet.
Saturday’s other Grade Two sees Captain Guinness go for a Fortria Chase hat-trick. De Bromhead’s runner has always laboured in the shadow of more high-profile stable companions, but unlike Bob Olinger managed to pull off championship glory at Cheltenham in March. Everything fell his way to pull off a first Grade One in the Champion Chase where he had Gentleman de Mee closing in second.
That best has been on much softer going than he will encounter now, and popular momentum behind him could result in value elsewhere, perhaps no more so than his stable companion Riaan, a good second at the Dublin Racing Festival in February.
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