Thurles keep eye on temperatures

RACING:THURLES COULD end up keeping the racing flame alive in Ireland this weekend although fears persist about low temperatures tonight ahead of the traditional pre-Christmas fixture.

“We are forecast to get pretty much everything, rain sleet, snow, frost,” said the course owner Pierce Molony yesterday. “The hurdle track looks alright today and from a frost view we have no problems right now.”

One of the three scheduled steeplechases was cancelled yesterday but Molony hasn’t ruled out hopes of running the other two, including the rerouted Porterstown Handicap Chase.

“We are anxious to run the chases if we can and if the temperatures don’t go too low we will look at everything on Sunday morning. We won’t know anything until then,” he added.

The feature is the Listed Horse And Jockey Hotel Hurdle which has a history of throwing up surprises with long odds-on shots getting turned over in the past.

Son Amix will be fancied to go well if Tom Cooper’s four-year-old comes here instead of Navan while Secant Star is a talented individual. However there is no doubt Asigh Pearl is the in-form horse having scored at Fairyhouse on Wednesday.

Last season’s Thyestes winner Whinstone Boy tops the weights in the Porterstown which will take some getting in the conditions.

Leon Og is a novice but he won well at Fairyhouse last time when beating Boxing Along by 10 lengths. Dessie Hughes’s charge can complete a good session for the trainer who has the Naas winner Si C’etait Vrai in the two-mile conditions hurdle.