SEVERAL IRISH trainers will be keeping a close eye on what the British handicapper does today when formulating the weights for Saturday’s valuable Grade Three United House Gold Cup at Ascot.
Four Irish-trained runners are among the 27 entries left in the three-mile event and they include the Munster National winner Muirhead as well as Bideford Legend who was runner-up to him at Limerick.
“There is a good chance that Muirhead will run but I want to see the weights before I decide,” Noel Meade reported yesterday while Bideford Legend’s trainer Charles Byrnes said: “He will go as long as his weight is okay.”
Another Irish entries is last year’s Munster National winner Golden Kite from Adrian Maguire’s yard while Eoin Giriffin’s The Last Derby could return to the scene of his greatest triumph having won the United House in 2009 at odds of 33 to 1.
“Since the Irish National things haven’t gone right for him. The ground was too soft last time out,” Griffin reported. “He won this race before and hopefully he can repeat it again. He is a lot better going right-handed.”
