Navan Racecourse, Sunday 11th June
We are just over a week away from Royal Ascot and as a result, this period of Racing feels like the lull before the storm. As with any weekend before a major festival, the standard does take a slight drop, but the best of this Sunday’s action looks to come from Navan. The feature race is the Listed Kooyonga Stakes at 3:40, but there are some interesting maidens and handicaps to support that. Our team have looked through the card and highlighted 3 horses that may be of interest.
2:35 – Navan Racecourse Handicap
This is quite a tight heat with all 7 horses having some sort of chance. Normally the draw would be key over the sprint course here, but with a small field and fast ground, it should be less of a concern. Lokada and Screen Siren have been running well, but the former is a much better horse on the All-weather at Dundalk, whilst the latter tends to save her best form for Cork so this should concern the 2 last time out winners at the top of the weights. Tawaazon has been a revelation since switching to James Macauley, winning 5 of his 9 starts for the yard, including over this course and distance in April. He returned to form to win a Premier Handicap at the Irish Guineas Festival and despite his new career high mark, he is of obvious interest in his current vein of form. However, It won’t be an easy task for Tawaazon to concede so much weight to his rivals and top of the list of dangers is HARMONY ROSE. She has been a frustrating filly at times, winning just 2 of her 20 career starts despite finishing in the first 3 on 12 occasions overall. Trained by Ken Condon, she has a solid record fresh and has proven herself worthy of her official rating of 80 on several occasions. Her draw in stall 5 should give her an ideal position behind the likely pace setter Lokada and in receipt of 12lbs from her main rival, she may well prove too good on these terms.
3:40 Darley Irish EBF Kooyonga Stakes
The 10 fillies heading to post for this Listed prize can be divided into 2 groups, those with a genuine chance of winning and those whose connections are chancing their arm in the hope of adding some Black Type to their CVs. Aiden O’Brien runs 3 in this race and with the yard in such good form they are hard to ignore. Beginnings doesn’t appear to have trained on over the winter and the application of the blinkers would suggest that she isn’t the most straightforward type, but the same cannot be said for Dower House, who has the services of Ryan Moore and Maybe just Maybe. Dower House was sacrificed as a pacemaker in the Irish 1,000 Guineas and is probably better judged on her 3rd placed finish in a Listed race at Gowran behind Indian Wish the time before. That was a solid effort, and it sets the standard, but after 8 starts (with just a Naas maiden win on her CV) we know a lot about her, and she may prove vulnerable to an improver. Maybe Just Maybe does make some appeal. She was highly tried last season after winning on debut at Leopardstown and her comeback run at Killarney was perfectly fair as she shaped like a horse who would improve for the run. She is a well-bred Filly and should continue to improve, for all that this 1-mile trip will probably be the bare minimum that she needs, but of the O’Brien trio she looks the more likely. Anything trained by Aiden O’Brien is going to be well found in the market, regardless of the perceived pecking order from the jockey bookings, so we will take a chance and hopefully a decent price about CADEAU BELLE as an alternative in this race. Trained by the in-form Johnny Murtagh, she made a striking impression when winning a shade cozily on debut at Gowran Park last month, running down the leaders in the closing stages after closing from what looked to be a muddling pace. The strength of that race is open to question as the placed horses have been beaten in handicap company since, but she did well to win from an unpromising position and she should improve considerably for the benefit of that outing. She was sold to Anthony Smurfit after that win and it is interesting to see her pitched into the deep end on her second start, but on the basis that she could be anything, she is worth an each-way play against more exposed rivals.
4:10 Irish Stallion Farms EBF Median Auction Maiden
Our final selection comes in the Fillies maiden at 4:10. In truth this race is unlikely to take too much winning but the Filly who appeals most is surely SEMANTICS. She went straight into tracker after her last run at the Curragh, where she travelled extremely strongly without ever getting the racing room needed to come with a winning run. She was given an easy time of things once it became clear that she wasn’t going to be able to get on terms, but it was a solid start to her 3-year-old season, and she drops back into maiden company in what looks to be a very winnable opportunity. Ger Lyons has been amongst the winners, and he has a 16% strike rate with his runners at Navan in the last 5 seasons. She looked to run beyond her official rating of 77 in that Premier Handicap at the Curragh, but if she can match that effort, it should be enough to dispatch some limited rivals.
