Beware of bookies bearing gifts is normally sound advice, but not at Gowran Park’s bank holiday Monday fixture where free entry to the track is being sponsored by the Irish National Professional Bookmakers Association.
It coincides with a second running of the €200,000 Irish Stallion Farms Gowran Classic, the richest race of the year at the Co Kilkenny course.
The winner will receive free entry into the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby later this month or into the Juddmonte Irish Oaks if a filly is successful. That proved the case a year ago as Fleur De Chine was successful for Jessica Harrington.
The Moone trainer has two of the 11 runners lining up at Gowran Park this time for a race designed to try to boost opportunities for middle-distance bred horses in Ireland. Harrington’s number one jockey Shane Foley has opted for Nancy J.
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Proven course performer Deressa out to secure valuable prize in €200k Gowran Classic
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Top-rated is the Ballydoyle filly Heavens Gate, who landed a valuable sales race as well as a Group Three last year. However, she has failed to fire in a pair of starts this season and beat only two home in the French 1,000 Guineas. This trip of almost 10 furlongs could stretch her stamina.
Joseph O’Brien has four shots, with And So To Bed the apparent first choice. But it is Deressa that could prove a solution.
She has won twice already this season at Gowran to reach a rating of 93. Of all the runners, the filly bred by the late Aga Khan shapes perhaps as the one most open to progress. A stall one draw is no impediment to her chances either.
The other bank holiday fixture is in Listowel, Co Kerry, where champion jumps jockey Paul Townend will fancy his chances of winning on both his mounts.
La Note Verte is a course bumper winner from last year who goes in the opening hurdle, while Blood Destiny’s rating makes him a standout in a later chase.
In other news, Monday will also see an important latest forfeit stage for next weekend’s Betfred Epsom Derby and it is set to see the unbeaten Aga Khan colt Midak supplemented into the “Blue Riband” at a cost of £75,000 (about €89,000).
Epsom’s authorities have titled this year’s Derby in honour of the late Aga Khan, who died in February. Shergar was the first of five Derby winners to carry his famous green silks.
Midak won the Prix Greffulhe at Saint-Cloud on his last start, after which his trainer Francis-Henri Graffard recommended a tilt at Epsom.
“He’s unbeaten in three starts, we know he gets the trip, he’s got the right kind of character to be able to handle Tattenham Corner and all the noise that comes with the Epsom Derby,” Zahra Aga Khan, daughter of the late Aga Khan, said.
“It’s nice to have a runner this year because the race is being run in honour of my father, and [Midak’s] done everything he should to be a valid runner in the Epsom Derby.”
Another potential supplementary entry into the Derby from France is the Juddmonte-owned colt New Ground. Pour Moi, in 2011, was the last of 10 French-trained Epsom Derby winners.
