RACING: Clonmel hosts its most important race of the year tomorrow and the €55,000 Morris Oil Chase has thrown up a real teaser.
Just 12 months ago Sackville was an ante-post favourite for the Gold Cup and looked to have the world at his feet. For good measure, his stable companion, Moscow Express, won this very race.
Both, however, will race tomorrow with something to prove. The good news for their trainer, Frances Crowley, is that they are not alone in that department.
Cregg House has a 132 rating but a skinny win ratio while the former winning point-to-pointer Beef Or Salmon is taking a huge leap for his first racecourse start over fences.
And it's not as if the likely favourite Alcapone inspires over-confidence.
The Mouse Morris runner lost his way last season through back trouble but returned to win the Fortria last time out. That was Alcapone's fifth career victory, all of which have been over two miles.
That makes tomorrow's two-and-a-half a concern but Morris is convinced the horse will relish the extra distance and as a three-parts brother to Merry Gale, that argument looks the most convincing.
The mare's novice chase also looks well above standard with the high class hurdlers Be My Belle and Aunt Aggie starting their fencing careers along with Supreme Touch.
Be My Belle ran off a hurdle mark of 133 in April and the last of her five career wins came at Punchestown in March, after which Sean Treacy predicted even more improvement once she faced fences.
The presence of Paul Carberry on Be My Belle's back can only help her chance and Carberry could also hit the scoreboard with Dromhale Lady in the handicap chase.
Be On Time finished a streak of three uninspiring starts over flights with a bumper success at Limerick and considering that form, she looks thrown in at the bottom of the handicap hurdle.
Masteroffoxhounds, transferred from Aidan O'Brien's to David Wachman after his Navan debut, should have learned a lot from that first start and looks a bet in the bumper, as does the Thurles flat winner Yukon in the handicap hurdle.
Paul Carberry: could land a double.
