RACING:LEOPARDSTOWN'S AUTHORITIES are keeping their fingers firmly crossed that the weather cooperates with their plans to run the postponed Hennessy Gold Cup card this Saturday.
Last weekend’s cancellation due to waterlogging was just the latest blow to the Co Dublin track this winter after heavy snow resulted in the first two days of the Christmas festival being scratched with just three days of the lucrative holiday action eventually being run off.
The Hennessy card, which features four Grade One races and some of the cream of Irish National Hunt racing’s performers, has been postponed six days but an unsettled forecast means Leopardstown’s officials are taking a “one day at a time” attitude.
“It is a bit mixed with rain forecast on Wednesday night into Thursday morning and Thursday night into Friday. But we’re being told the Dublin area won’t be hit too badly,” manager Tom Burke said yesterday. “However the forecast we were given last week was really good and it didn’t end up that way in the end. Anything beyond two or three days away is very hard to predict.
“It’s like we were told to expect 25mms between Sunday morning and this morning and we ended up getting 3mms. The result of that is the course has improved a huge amount and we’ve very close to being raceable now. We’ll just have to take each day as it comes,” he added.
Both The Listener and Money Trix remain intended runners in the Hennessy and while Paul Nicholls has re-routed Pride Of Dulcote to Ascot’s Betfair Chase later in the month, he has left Indian Daudaie in the frame for the Spring Juvenile Hurdle at the weekend.
That race also remains the plan for Dermot Weld’s Unaccompanied, one of the leading ante-post names in the Triumph Hurdle market, and winner of her sole start to date over flights.
“Everything remains the same as planned for her and Hidden Universe (Deloitte Novice Hurdle.) Both will run on Saturday. Everybody understands what happened with the rain and both horses need to run again having run just the once over hurdles so far. There’s nowhere better than Leopardstown for them to learn and we’ll learn more about them at the weekend,” Weld said yesterday.
Willie Mullins has already committed stable stars such as Mikael D’Haguenet (Dr PJ Moriarty), Zaidpour (Deloitte) and both Kempes and Cooldine (Hennessy) to running on Saturday but the in-form champion trainer is also likely to be involved in Newbury’s Totesport Trophy on the same day.
Mullins has left both his MCR Hurdle winner Final Approach and Sweet My Lord in the prestigious handicap which has a total of 24 entries remaining in it after yesterday’s forfeit stage.
