Jezki looks to have a perfect opportunity in tomorrow’s Bar One Racing Hatton’s
Grace Hurdle
to graduate to the forefront of the Cheltenham picture on a prestigious triple-Grade One “Premier Jump Racing” Fairyhouse card that can see Gilt Shadow strike a rare blow for the underdog.
Jezki might have only four to beat in the €80,000 centrepiece, with half a dozen in line for the Drinmore Novice Chase, but in terms of quality and quantity, it is the Royal Bond Novice Hurdle which appears the most fascinatingly competitive of the three top-flight prizes.
The complicating and unlikely factor of near perfect ground means the Royal Bond presents possibly even more of a challenge but it is one all the top outfits of Irish jump racing are relishing. JP McManus's Minella Foru is joined by Gigginstown's Very Wood and Barry Connell's The Tullow Tank, while champion trainer Willie Mullins pitches three into the race.
In comparison Gilt Shadow is coming in very much under the radar but the horse trained by Stuart Crawford in Co Antrim boasts some fine bumper form from last season and could hardly have been more impressive on his sole start over flights to date at Down Royal.
That has been Crawford’s sole winner of the campaign to date and Gilt Shadow will be ridden by his brother Steven, an amateur who hardly boasts the typical profile of an amateur jockey taking on Messrs McCoy, Walsh, Geraghty et al.
Crawford, 34, is a former good apprentice jockey on the flat who won an Irish Cambridgeshire and who has ridden in the past for Aidan O'Brien and Nigel Twiston-Davis. In a race where the unseasonal ground is something of an unknown factor for some of the higher-profile runners, Gilt Shadow, who had Apache Stronghold behind him in the Grade One Punchestown bumper last April, could represent a touch of value.
In contrast there looks no getting away from Jezki's claims in the Hatton's Grace, a race won in the past by Istabraq, Brave Inca and Hurricane Fly, all Champion Hurdle heroes.
Jezki is a general 8-1 shot for the championship and if those odds are correct, he really should be in a different league to the Gigginstown pair, Rule The World and the supplemented Dedigout, as well as the Willie Mullins due, Zaidpour and Diakali, although given the ground the latter could step up appreciably on some already high-class form.
The Galway Plate winner Carlingford Lough carries the McManus colours in the Drinmore while Davy Russell has picked Don Cossack over Road To Riches of the Michael O'Leary pair. They will all do well though to get the better of Sizing Rio, described by trainer Henry De Bromhead as "my great white hope" following an impressive win at Cork last time.
Tomorrow's opening Grade Three Juvenile Hurdle threw up the brilliant Our Conor in 2012 and this time there will be plenty interest in Analifet's second start over flights. The first at Punchestown saw the French import race too keenly yet she still brushed aside her stable companion Noble Inn in wonderful style. Better going could see Another Palm reverse Cork form with Sword Fish in the long distance handicap chase.
