O'Neill not taking a chance with Dancer

IT’S ALL systems go for Leopardstown’s second attempt to stage its Hennessy Gold Cup card this Sunday but the €200,000 feature will be without one of the original main fancies, Exotic Dancer.

Jonjo O’Neill’s Lexus winner was the only one missing from yesterday’s list of entries compared to last week when he was a general 2 to 1 second favourite to win again around the Co Dublin track.

Snow put paid to any chances of staging the meeting last week and yesterday a total of seven entries remained in the Hennessy after the five-day forfeit stage.

They include the Paul Nicholls- trained favourite Neptune Collonges and last year’s winner The Listener as well as Jim Dreaper’s Welsh National hero Notre Pere who is set to lead the home defence.

“The plan is to run him in the Hennessy,” Dreaper said yesterday. “We will have a look at him next Sunday against the so-called Gold Cup pretenders and we can assess him after that.”

However, Jonjo O’Neill has decided the rescheduled Hennessy is too close to the Cheltenham festival for Exotic Dancer who will now be targeted at the Gold Cup, a race in which he was runner-up to Kauto Star in 2007.

“He is not going to go to Ireland and will go straight to the Gold Cup,” O’Neill said. “If we went to Leopardstown and he had a hard race it could mean he would have to miss the Gold Cup so he won’t go. The plan is to go for the Gold Cup, win that, and then go and win the National!”

Most importantly of all though there doesn’t appear to be any problem with racing going ahead on Sunday with Leopardstown yesterday being finally clear of snow after the recent cold snap.

“It’s all gone and we would be close to raceable today, not far off it at all,” said the track manager Tom Burke. “The forecast is very good, virtually dry for the rest of the week. There are suggestions of frost at night but there will also be some cloud cover and temperatures during the day are expected to get up to six or seven degrees. It’s looking very positive at the moment.”

The ground is officially described as “heavy” at Leopardstown ahead of the three Grade One races that will be run on Sunday.

Champion trainer Willie Mullins has left in both Cousin Vinny and Hurricane Fly in the Deloitte Novice Hurdle and will leave a decision on running plans until later in the week.

Possible opposition to the Mullins team remains strong with Colm Murphy’s Zaarito also among the 11 remaining entries along with the Noel Meade pair, Pandorama and Realt Dubh. However, numerically, it is Mullins’s brother Tom who has the strongest hand with the trio of Bob Lingo, Oscar Dan Dan and Time Electric.

A total of 10 entries remain in the Dr PJ Moriarty Novice Chase including the former SunAlliance winner Nicanor and Cooldine who is currently the shortest priced Irish hope for the RSA Chase at Cheltenham.

A star name that could line up in the two-mile handicap hurdle on Sunday is the Grand National runner-up King Johns Castle who will be having his first start since recovering from injury.

“I’d hope to run at the weekend but we will see how things go. Regardless of what happens he will run at Naas on March 4th,” trainer Arthur Moore said yesterday.

The Fairyhouse card scheduled for today has been refixed to Friday by Horse Racing Ireland. The track failed an inspection yesterday morning.