JOHN OXX and Mick Kinane have enjoyed an unparalleled year through the exploits of Sea The Stars, so Rayeni would be an appropriate big-race winner on the final day of the turf Flat season at Leopardstown this afternoon.
Rayeni wasn’t too far from Classic glory himself last May when he chased home Mastercraftsman in the Irish 2,000 Guineas, and that’s an outstanding piece of form in the context of today’s Knockaire Stakes.
The 14-runner Listed race is part of the card postponed from last Sunday because of waterlogging, but the prospect of heavy ground will hold no terrors for Rayeni, whose biggest win to date came at the Dublin track in last year’s Killavullan Stakes.
Oxx dropped the Aga Khan-owned colt to six furlongs for his last start and it paid off with a Stakes win, albeit a narrow one by a neck from Luisant.
James Nash’s six-year-old is 3lb better off for that today, but the extra furlong should suit Rayeni much better and it will be just his fourth start of a truncated campaign.
This afternoon’s other Listed event is the Eyrefield Stakes for juveniles, which in the past decade has thrown up the subsequent Classic winners Yesterday (2002) and Vinnie Roe (2000).
None of today’s field may rise to those heights, but, five months after beating just one home on his debut here, Marfach can secure the most valuable prize of his career to date.
Jim Bolger’s two-year-old only just missed out on one of the Goffs Million prizes in September when runner-up to Shakespearean, a piece of form that gives him the beating of this opposition which includes two from Ballydoyle.
Twenty-one runners will contest the November Handicap, including the 2004 winner Al Eile, who is running here in preparation for the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle this month.
Dani California is 9lb higher in the ratings for her Irish Cesarewitch victory, while Dermot Weld’s bumper star Rite Of Passage is something of a dark horse.
This is normally a tough task for three-year-olds and just two of them line up today. However, Final Approach has a low weight and shapes like a horse that could appreciate the step up to two miles.
The former John Durkan winner, In Compliance, returns to action in today’s Listed Chase at Thurles, where Chelsea Harbour will have a big edge on fitness, while Zaarito could have too much toe for his opposition in a strong-looking Beginners Chase.
