Listowel Preview and reportListowel's third day feature is the Race Supporters Lartigue Hurdle where Iktitaf looks a reasonable bet to pick up the 35,000 first prize. The champion trainer Noel Meade saddles three runners for a race he won in successive years with Pasteur (2002) and Snob Wells (2001), but significantly Paul Carberry has opted for the unexposed option in Iktitaf.
It took 85,000 guineas for the four-year-old to leave John Gosden's yard and join Meade at last October's Newmarket Sales but in just two Irish starts to date the horse has shown enough to suggest the price might have been good value.
Meade certainly didn't hesitate to pitch him in high on his jumping debut in February by running Iktitaf in a Grade Three won by Majlis with Don't Be Bitin, who runs today, in second. Another start yielded an unimpressive maiden win at Kilbeggan but the trainer explained that a gelding operation had set the horse back.
A summer holiday should result in a very different proposition this afternoon for a valuable pot that has a worthy topweight in Helensburgh.
Pat Hughes's charge impressed in two jumps starts last year but has to concede 10lb to Iktitaf while Don't Be Bitin has in the past shown a preference for going right handed. A bigger threat may come from Articulation.
Meade and Carberry will be major players in the final maiden hurdle where the enigmatic Dooley has his third racecourse start in almost two years.
A bumper start behind Master Albert in 2003 indicated a horse with a future but when Dooley, who always had a big home reputation, eventually started over hurdles last June, he was brought down with four others at the first flight. Today looks an ideal opportunity for the JP McManus-owned horse.
Kieren Fallon has passed up on the chance to ride Ballydoyle hope Born For Glory in the mile juvenile maiden but even with Fallon on board the Sadler's Wells colt would have faced a big threat in Chiado. Kevin Prendergast's horse made a respectable debut at Leopardstown behind Septimus and the runner-up, Arabian Prince, won at the Curragh on Sunday. Christy Geoghegan takes a valuable 5lb off Peineve who tries to follow up last year's success in the mile fillies handicap.
