THE 1997 flat season doesn't so much start with a bang as a barely audible whimper at Tipperary tomorrow. The three relatively nondescript races that set up the largely National Hunt fixture are hardly likely to stir the crowd into rapturous excitement, but the summer game has to start some time and events have chosen Tipperary.
The early timing of Easter, Mallow racecourse's delayed start and the desire of owners and trainers for fixtures are just some of those events, but it means an unsuitably low profile for the flat season's opening.
"If we could have a later start to the season but an adequate run in to the finish on the first week in November it would be better," former champion trainer John Oxx said yesterday.
For the moment, though, the flat is taking its first tentative steps, and punters should be similarly tentative about their investments. The mild spring has meant the horses are more forward than usual, but until the acid test of the racecourse, doubts about how they have trained must persist.
In the circumstances it may be best to rely on a horse fit and battle hardened from hurdling, and Toast The Spreece fits the bill precisely in the Slievenamon Handicap.
Aidan O'Brien's novice hurdler ran up a sequence through the winter and looked to be going really well in Cheltenham's County Hurdle only to fluff the last and drop away. A winner over a mile at Listowel last September, Toast The Spreece should find the return to the speed game no trouble and should make his fitness pay.
Lil's Boy wound up his juvenile year by chasing home, at a fair distance admittedly, Shell Ginger in the Group Three Killavullan Stakes and on the balance of his form is hard to oppose in the Silvermines Race, while Somerton Reef is the speculative choice in the opener.
Among the hardy annuals of the jumping game, Sidcup Hill can get her revenge on Tell The Nipper in the Kevin McManus Novice Chase.
There was only a neck between the pair when they met at Limerick recently and while literal readings of the formbook can be misleading, Sidcup Hill is weighted to reverse that.
Dan's Your Man ran a fine race to be beaten only a couple of lengths by the progressive Lancastrian Pride at Gowran Park two weeks ago and can break his hurdling duck in the second division of the maiden. Arthur Moore's Limerick bumper winner Windgap Hill looks the bet in the first division.
Spirit Dancer is the only four year old in the Homecoming Handicap Hurdle, but can win it for the juvenile ranks while any market moves for Aidan O'Brien's Rainbow Tour should be noted.
