The white flag is being unfurled for the start of six of the busiest and most exciting days of the racing year and punters can get the Galway Festival off to the perfect start if Snow Falcon can swoop to conquer the opening day feature, the GPT Qualified Riders Handicap.
Snow Falcon proved himself one of the best juvenile hurdlers of the last jumping season when running second to Grimes at the Punchestown Festival and broke his duck over flights with an easy defeat of River Valley Lady at Tipperary last month.
All of which could be dismissed in the context of tonight's two mile flat race were it not for the fact that Snow Falcon has clearly improved for his hurdling exploits and intriguingly is still handicapped for the flat on the basis of some competent if uninspired flat form in England last year.
Then Snow Falcon was trained in Newmarket by Michael Bell but came to Ireland and Tom Taaffe's yard last Autumn. The former top national hunt jockey has done a fine job in adapting the son of Polar Falcon to his new career and now that the new improved Snow Falcon model is returning to his original job, it could very well be that he is thrown in at today's weights.
The booking of the talented young English champion amateur Robert "Chocolate" Thornton is further reason for confidence but this race is never easily won and Thornton will have to be at his best around Galway's unique circuit if Snow Falcon is to be positioned to beat his most likely dangers, the topweight Winged Hussar, the consistent if luckless Sir Oracle and the Bellewstown winner Valley Erne. It should be worth betting though that Thornton's and Snow Falcon's passage through the race will be the smoothest and more importantly the fastest.
When looking for nap material at Ballybrit, however, it usually pays to row in with Dermot Weld and while the mutterings from Rosewell House are that Weld may not enjoy as successful a festival this year compared to in the past, his Support Act does look a likely winner in the bumper.
Support Act hasn't run since the Punchestown Festival last April but shaped full of promise then. After losing his place at halfway in a decent bumper, Support Act managed to fight his way into contention but then didn't get the clearest of passages again and had to give best by two lengths to The Bongo Man. It was hard to escape the conclusion that with a decent passage, Support Act should have won at Punchestown and although Newton Heath ran well enough behind the selection's stable-mate Musical Mayhem on his debut at Tipperary to make him a worry, Support Act deserves the nap.
Weld has farmed the seven furlong juvenile maiden in the past and relies on Aljjawarih, a very expensive flop when odds-on favourite on his Curragh debut. Aljjawarih was found to have mucus in his throat after that race and is clearly better than that run would suggest but preference here is for Aidan O'Brien's Desert Fox.
This colt ran second to the highly rated Winona at Leopardstown and being a son of Sadler's Wells should appreciate the forecast good to yielding ground.
O'Brien and Christy Roche can also take the 12 furlong handicap with Citizen Kane who showed admirable resolution to upset better fancied opponents at Killarney last time. Admiral Wings won nicely up in the north last time but could find the concession of 6lb to Citizen Kane beyond him up this demanding final hill.
