SOME PROVEN black type performers go in pursuit of big money at Fairyhouse tomorrow but it could be the unexposed Azamata who picks up the biggest share of the €150,000 on offer for the Tattersalls Ireland Sale Stakes.
Confined to horses catalogued at last year’s Tattersalls September Sale, there is €73,500 to the winner but prize-money stretches down to a couple of grand for finishing 10th.
A team of eight cross-channel runners line up for what will be an ultra competitive, seven-furlong event that was won by the top-class Dick Turpin in 2009.
Mick Channon’s Gatepost has been mixing it in top-flight company this season but it is Mick Mulvaney’s Tough As Nails who is highest rated with an official mark of 112.
He has earned every pound of it too in six starts that include a Phoenix Stakes third and a fifth to his old rival Power in last weekend’s National Stakes at the Curragh.
However, Tough As Nails has been handed a high draw and in the circumstances it could pay to side with Azamata who has just his second start this weekend after a hugely promising Curragh debut.
Kevin Prendergast’s runner found Imperial Monarch too good over a mile but it looked a hot maiden and Azamata showed the sort of pace that suggests this trip won’t be any trouble. He’s got a good draw too and Prendergast knows how to win this race having scored with Choose Me in 2008.
Aidan O’Brien has the topweight Raphael Santi in the feature but his best chance of a winner could come in the juvenile fillies maiden where Cabin should prove very hard to beat.
The daughter of Galileo and Mona Lisa found only her hugely-expensive stable companion Was too good on a Curragh debut last month that oozed potential for the future. Cabin had some smart types behind her that day and Colm O’Donoghue can steer her to victory second time of asking.
Edward O’Grady runs Sailors Warn and Capellanus in the concluding mile-and-a-half handicap. Both were decent hurdlers last winter particularly Sailors Warn who was a Grade Two winner over flights. He looks an interesting starter in his first race on the level since scoring at Sligo last year.
Krivan brings an 80 rating to the opening maiden party and that may be good enough.
