Lethal option
There is bad luck and there is bad luck in it, but you have to feel for Jessica Harrington. There are three reserves standing by for the Galway Hurdle today, and all three are trained by the Moone trainer. That said, while you don’t get many reserves getting into the Plate or the Hurdle any year, two reserves got into the Plate yesterday, so you never know. The ground is getting quicker and, if it is fast ground today, there might be a couple of trainers who may not want to risk their horses in the Hurdle.
Jessie has another horse already in the race, No One Tells Me, but you have to think that she would fancy Gimli’s Rock or Alpine Eagle more than her if either or both were to get into the race. They might. Or she might win it with No One Tells Me. This game has a habit of throwing up real stories that are too far-fetched for fiction. Like in the Plate, the www.thetote.com Galway Plate, AP McCoy was booked to ride Dancing Tornado, but the horse was lame in the morning, and the champ was apparently as non-plussed as a full cat faced with a dish full of dog food about switching to his boss JP McManus’s other horse, Finger Onthe Pulse. Even JP himself didn’t seem too confident before the race. Yes, you know how this one ends. McCoy got the Tom Taaffe-trained 22/1 shot home in a thriller from Paul Townend on Themoonandsixpence.
It was McCoy’s first Plate. He’s achieving a lot of firsts this year. He was supposed to ride Far From Trouble in 2006, but he had a bad fall earlier on the day and wasn’t fit to take the ride. Roger Loughran duly stepped in and won the thing. As above, stranger than fiction.
The McCoy/McManus combination has a big chance in the Hurdle as well with Lethal Weapon. The son of Hawk Wing hasn’t been in great form over hurdles since he finished 16th of 18 in the 2009 Triumph Hurdle, but he was one of the top juvenile hurdlers in Ireland going into that race, having won his previous three, including the Grade 1 Durkan New Homes Hurdle at Leopardstown’s Christmas Festival.
He has obviously had his problems. He didn’t run after that Triumph Hurdle until this February, he ran in the Irish Lincoln instead of Cheltenham in March, and he disappointed over hurdles at both Punchestown in April and Killarney in May, but he did shape with a lot of promise in a 10-furlong handicap at The Curragh two weeks ago, when he stayed on well under a nice ride from Niall McCullough to finish a close-up sixth behind Sublime Talent.
He could be well handicapped over hurdles now on a mark of 132, given that he was rated 145 as a juvenile, and it would not be at all surprising to see him run a big race, but he is going to have to jump well, and that is a little bit of a worry. He was available at 20/1 not so long ago, so best odds of 9/1 are short enough. There is probably a lot of the McCoy factor in there, exacerbated by the fact that he won the Plate today, whether bookmakers do or don’t have some major doubles going onto him.
What would happen, though, if the Jessica Harrington-trained, JP McManus-owned Alpine Eagle got into the race? Would the champ switch to ride him? What would the bookmakers do then, eh?
* For more of Donn’s thoughts, visit www.donnmcclean.com.
Tags: AP McCoy, Galway Hurdle, Jessica Harrington, JP McManus
Categories: Horse racing
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