It will be understandable if the bookmakers at Leopardstown today are walking their boxes a little more than usual. The strapping five-year-old Pasternak has that effect on most of our turf accountant brethren, except this time it will be the Irish bookies who could end up diving for cover.
Up to now the horse, who is owned by a syndicate headed by racing journalist Graham Rock and trained by the wonderfully calculating Sir Mark Prescott, has been terrorising the ring in Britain. Now the £50,000 Golden Pages Handicap is the next big pot in Pasternak's sights and those sights tend to have the unerring accuracy of an uncomfortably close U-boat.
Of all last season's gambles, none could match the style with which Pasternak brought back the bacon in York's Magnet Cup and Newmarket's Cesarewitch. Just two races and two colossal plunges justified.
The Cambridgeshire, in particular, indicated that Pasternak may be a Group horse masquerading as a handicapper to devastating effect. The Newmarket cavalry charge is always one of the most competitive races of the year and yet Pasternak was always travelling like a winner, having been backed down from double figure prices in the morning.
It's understandable then that no chances were taken when Pasternak reappeared again in the renamed John Smiths's Cup last Saturday. Favourite until just before the off, Pasternak had 10lb more than when he won in 1997 but still ran a blinder to be second to the progressive Porto Foricos.
He looked slightly unlucky then, too, because George Duffield was briefly caught in a pocket, and by the time he got Pasternak out, Porto Foricos was in top gear. Throw that in with the fact that Pasternak is 5lb better today than in future handicaps and no wonder the bookmakers are shuffling nervously.
More than one of them will be looking to Jim Bolger for salvation. The Coolcullen trainer has a stupendous record in the nine-furlong contest, having won it for the last four years and six times in all. Indeed Bolger himself would argue that he also won it in 1984 with Jazz Me Blues, but that one was subsequently disqualified.
He relies on Cambodian and Elida this year, and on their best form, neither can be ignored. The revitalised topweight, Approvance, will also be fancied to win for James Lenehan, and the Tipperary winner Fairy Ridge should run a nice race off a light weight.
However it's hard to ignore the possibility that Pasternak is just a better class animal than these and may have this usually ultra-competitive handicap at his mercy. A worry is his tendency to pull hard and how he will adapt if there is no early pace, but it's difficult to oppose Pasternak.
He will certainly be a banker for some in the hunt for part of the jackpot which is boosted by a £15,000 guarantee. Another banker will be Dabaya in the Challenge Stakes and the John Oxxtrained filly is napped.
The Aga Khan-owned filly was well supported to win Royal Ascot's Ribblesdale Stakes last time, but after travelling best of all to the straight, she couldn't quicken up with the likes of Bahr and finished a well beaten fifth.
However, she should be better than that form figure suggests and with an extra quarter mile to travel this time, her high cruising speed can come even more into effect.
Dabaya's trainer John Oxx could also pull off something of an upset in the C&C Race, where Bianconi looks worth opposing with a value price Symboli Kil- dare, while John Murtagh is taken to win the Rochestown Stakes with the Navan winner, My Chief. Dermot Weld and Michael Kinane are marginally preferred in the Clarmallagh Maiden with the newcomer, Quite Regal, and the course specialist Amontillado may regain winning form over the seven furlongs of the Three Rock Handicap.
