Storm Gem has proved a notable money spinner this year for the Town and Country Racing Club as the mare has not only won three times over hurdles but in addition she carried off a £12,000 amateur rider handicap on the flat at Listowel.

On her most recent appearance she upset an apparent handicap certainty at Galway when successfully giving 13 lb to Manus The Man, getting up close home to win by a short head.

The pair were a dozen lengths clear of Sallie's Girl who won afterwards to cement the form. Today it is the turn of Storm Gem to prove herself over fences as she makes her chasing debut in the European Breeders Fund Beginners Chase at Thurles.

There is a ready made favourite in the race in the shape of NativeDarrig who is rated 23 lb above Storm Gem as a hurdler.

Furthermore he has jumped fences already but if Ollimar had been ridden out to the finish, there was no way that NativeDarrig would have got within a short head of the winner. With Jason Titley, who rides so well over fences in the saddle, Storm Gem could be a value-for-money wager.

Sam Vaughan was having his first start of the year at Cork last week in the fiasco of a race in which a five-horse field was effectively reduced to four runners when the pace-setting Merry Gale went the wrong course at the second fence.

This made a present of the third placing to Sam Vaughan but the run should have tuned him up for the Kilsheelan Handicap Chase in which he has far more chasing experience than any of those in the higher reaches of the handicap.

Laochra is napped to recoup course losses in the long distance maiden hurdle that opens the day. Like Storm Gem he is owned by a syndicate for whom he won a Thurles bumper last December beating Johnston's Ville by a wide margin.

Paul Carberry, whose style in the saddle on Imperial Call at Naas last Saturday was much appreciated, has a less reliable converyance, Master Kemal, under him in the Templemore Handicap Chase. However, he ran a tip-top race last week behind Palette.