Last chance looming for Winter Festival

RACING:FAIRYHOUSE'S "WINTER Festival" card may be in the last chance saloon after repeated postponements due to the cold snap but hopes are rising that the triple-Grade One meeting will finally go ahead on Wednesday.

“We might be just about over the line,” a relieved manager, Peter Roe, said yesterday after seeing much of the snow disappear form the Ratoath track.

“We would be nearly raceable today, but not quite. However, we are in a lot better shape than 48 hours ago.”

The concern for Fairyhouse now is forecast low temperatures tonight and tomorrow night but Roe added: “We are trying to be optimistic and for everyone’s sanity I hope we can race. I would be very surprised if this isn’t our last chance to get the meeting on.”

There are also doubts about a possible rescheduling for tomorrow’s John Durkan Memorial Chase if the meeting can’t go ahead. Unlike Fairyhouse there was still snow on the course yesterday and officials were not hopeful.

“We are having a very good thaw today but it only lasts four or five hours and then the temperatures get cold again. We still have some sort of chance but my view is that the thaw won’t do enough for us in time. I don’t think we’ll race on Tuesday,” manager, Richie Galway said yesterday.

“As everything keeps changing I will talk to Horse Racing Ireland again in the morning about rescheduling if we have to. Obviously we are getting close to Christmas. But the circumstances every track is in might mean we have a chance of rescheduling.”

The weather continued to exert its grip yesterday when Cork was forced to abandon the postponed chases scheduled for today, including the Grade Two O’Connell Group Hilly Way Chase, due to frost remaining in the ground on the steeplechase course.

Both the Hilly Way and the Grade Three mares chase were moved from yesterday’s card on Saturday but clerk of the course, Pat Malone, said: “There is too much frost left in the ground and it is not going to thaw in time.”

Willie Mullins will regret missing out on the Hilly Way opportunity with Golden Silver and two other entries but the champion trainer can still enjoy a productive afternoon overall as Riltree can be expected to improve significantly for her Limerick debut in the mares bumper while Dare To Doubt could emerge best in the opener. Quiet Thought won well at Thurles on her last start and looks a big danger in the mares novice hurdle.

Mossey Joe turns up trumps

MOSSEY JOE was the surprise star of the show at Cork yesterday. The 12 to 1 shot, trained in Co Tipperary by Willie Austin, was aiming high on his first run over the smaller obstacles in the O'Connell Group Cork Stayers Novice Hurdle.

However, the dual point-to-point and novice hunter chase winner took it all in his stride as he landed the Grade Three heat in tremendous fashion. Always travelling easily for Andrew Leigh as Saville Row and Fists Of Fury made the running, Mossey Joe jumped into the lead at the third last flight and the Moscow Society gelding stretched clear to score by nine lengths from Fists Of Fury.

Dual bumper winner Bishopsfurze was cut from 25 to 1 to 16 to 1 by Stan James for the Neptune Novices' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival after making a winning debut over jumps in the first division of the Irish Racing Yearbook Maiden Hurdle.

The 11 to 10 favourite, trained by Willie Mullins, went on before the second-last in the hands of Paul Townsend and kept on strongly to beat outsider Changing Times by three lengths.

Changing Times' trainer Oliver McKiernan went one better when Profit Margin (9 to 2) prevailed in division two. Mountain Heather (16 to 1) bounded away from her rivals to take the Newmarket Novice Handicap Hurdle in good styleby eight lengths from Burnfort Girl while Osirixamix (12 to 1) ran his rivals into the ground with a cosy pillar-to-post success in the Mallow Handicap Hurdle.