Orgilgo Bay tipped for hurdle glory and McCoy’s selected mount can take Plate
IT’S a tip in itself. Champion trainer Willie Mullins is usually mob-handed when he plans an assault on National Hunt racing’s bigger prizes, but next Thursday he will rely on only one horse in the richest hurdle race in the country at Ballybrit.
Not only is strong ante post favourite Pique Sous the stable’s lone challenger for the €250,000 Guinness Galway Hurdle, but Mullins is also lining up the six-year-old grey for an audacious double attempt in the Betfred Ebor at York next month.
Winner of the Queen Alexandra Stakes at Royal Ascot in June, Pique Sous will be making his first appearance over jumps since being pulled up in last year’s Galway Hurdle when the heavy underfoot conditions conspired against Ruby Walsh’s mount.
Running off the same mark as 12 months ago, Pique Sous is already the hype horse for next Thursday’s highlight, but he will have to overcome a potentially numerically strong cross-channel raiding party, headed by top weight Purple Bay which romped home in the Summer Hurdle at Market Rasen last Saturday.
Apart from Purple Bay, trainer John Ferguson could also be represented by Parlour Games, Bordoni and Dubai Prince on his first ever visit to the Galway festival, while among other UK possibles are Alan King’s Mountbazon; the Seamus Mullins trained Fergal; Vulcanite, the second highest rated in the race; and Donald McCain’s in-form Gabrial The Great.
Though Pique Sous leads the strong home defence – at least in the minds of the bookmakers – punters will obviously be taking stock of other leading contenders such as Quick Jack which was last seen finishing third to Gilgamboa in the Boylesports.com Hurdle at Leopardstown back in January.
His trainer Tony Martin has never won the Galway Hurdle but the stable’s runners were in cracking form at last year’s festival chance. Furthermore, Quick Jack is currently set to carry only 9st 10lbs and could be a blot on the handicap.
Gordon Elliott’s Bayan, which was recently successful on the flat at Leopardstown and finished third in the Coral Cup at Cheltenham in March, also heads to Ballybrit with a strong profile, but the one we like best at longer odds is John McConnell’s Orgilgo Bay, assuming the four-year-old makes the final cut.
An honorable third in the Fred Winter Hurdle at the Cheltenham festival, Orgilgo Bay pulverised an admittedly modest field at Downpatrick earlier this month and though winning the Galway Hurdle is a big ask for a four-year-old, Perugino Diamond showed it could be done in 2000.
Top owner JP McManus saw his colours fill the first three places in last year’s Galway Plate with Carlingford Lough and Tony McCoy leading the way, and it’s clear from the original entries that the Limerick native is anxious for more glory in the €200,000 showpiece next Wednesday.
McManus, incredibly, is is responsible for 14 of the 59 entries, with Kid Cassidy, now trained by Christy Roche and second in the Grand Annual in Cheltenham in 2013, heading the weights. Naturally, racegoers will be keeping a close eye on which horse McCoy ends up riding, but it would be no surprise if he opts for It’s A Gimme, an impressive scorer in the Summer Plate at Market Rasen last Saturday.
The Dessie Hughes trained Art Of Logistics is another of the leading ante post fancies, but was unimpressive in justifying cramped odds of 2/9 in Punchestown in early June, while Charlie Byrnes has already indicated that his novice, Domination, a winner at Royal Ascot may skip the race as he is unhappy with the horse’s handicap mark.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.