BOOKMAKERS head to Listowel today with their satchels full after all seven favourites failed at the Curragh. But if they are under the impression that sponsoring a few raffles this week compensates for another display of their now legendary Scrooge-like qualities on Saturday, when they offered 14 to 1, 11 to 1 and 10 to 1 about three winners who paid respectively 72 to 1, 25 to 1 and 32 to 1 on the Tote, they could not be more wrong.
The Tote should have an extremely rewarding day, with a Jackpot carry-over of over £34,000 getting the festival off to a wonderful start. They possibly could have done with a few more runners in the four races, but with a highly competitive nursery, a beginners' chase and a Flat handicap for amateur riders included, a sizeable dividend is on the cards.
Topweights have a fine record in recent nurseries, with Petite Princess, Rasin and Gan Ainm winning from that position and Mosconi losing by only a neck at the Curragh. Caiseal Ros is the one who has to concede weight all round in the Kingdom EBF Nursery and after a runaway victory admittedly on soft ground, at Tralee, must have a first-rate chance.
Jim Bolger, his trainer, is also represented by the Curragh winner, Sublime Beauty, who beat the well regarded Moving On Up over today's distance. Rasin won his nursery snugly at Galway and he and another Galway winner, Casey Tibbs, come strongly in to the reckoning. In what should an excellent contest, Sublime Beauty is taken to beat Caiscal Ros and Rasin.
From five possibles, Aidan O'Brien has settled on Strong Boost as his representative in the Patsy Byrne Beginners Chase. Twice a winner in handicap hurdles, the five-year-old would have to improve on his first two runs over fences to come into the reckoning here. Kentucky Babe fell two out at Galway when tracking the leaders and ran well at Kilbeggan before that. She may have the beating of Angareb and More Banter.
Takeamemo, a dead-heater in a Flat maiden at Clonmel, makes her hurdling debut in the Devon Inn Hurdle and, with Richard Dunwoody in the saddle, may be worth taking a chance with to beat the O'Brien pair, lacchus and Evriza.
Garaiyba, the winner of the big amateur race at Galway. has a stiff task in the Aer Rianta Duty Free Handicap, but may be capable of holding the challenge of Space Trucker.