A single winning favourite in more than 25 years underlines how trappy the Guinness Kerry National is and Wednesday’s renewal of the Listowel festival’s €200,00 feature looks typically competitive.
Bookmaker expectation appears to be that Willie Mullins’s You Oughta Know is the most likely of the 18 runners to win.
The novice is one of a trio of runners from the champion trainer and will have just a fifth start over fences. You Oughta Know could hardly have won his last race at Wexford more easily but this is a different level of challenge again.
Nevertheless, champion jockey Paul Townend’s decision to opt for him rather than Spanish Harlem will be enough to sway many punters.
READ MORE
Mullins last won the Kerry National five years ago through Cabaret Queen, while Gordon Elliott won it back-to-back in 2016-17 with Wrath Of Titans and Potters Point. Elliott has four chances this time, with Jack Kennedy plumping for Three Card Brag.
Western Fold’s Galway Plate success during the summer emphasised Elliott’s power in these big handicap chases and he also has topweight Pied Piper.
It is a quarter of a century since the late Ferdy Murphy brought Macs Supreme across the Irish Sea to land the Kerry National, and there is an overseas representative this time too.
Light N Strike comes from Mickey Bowen’s yard in west Wales and will be ridden by his brother James. How potent a Welsh challenge can be was pinpointed when Haiti Couleurs landed the Irish National at Fairyhouse last Easter.
Light N Strike hardly boasts a similarly unexposed progressive profile, but it will be his first start for Bowen after joining him from Emma Lavelle.
What can be predicted with some reasonable certainty is that a similarly dominant display to last year’s by Flooring Porter is unlikely.
The former Stayers Hurdle champion basically had the race won with a circuit to go, he was so far clear. The Gavin Cromwell-Keith Donoghue team are represented this time by the Thecompanysergeant.
He was one of those who had the thankless task of trying to cope with Western Fold in the Galway Plate in July and eventually struggled home in ninth, a place behind Three Card Brag, who lost his chance at the start. Sea Music was fifth and Shecouldbeanything third.
Anyway was one of a trio of casualties at Ballybrit when unseating Derek O’Connor at the fourth obstacle.
The Ken Budds-trained runner, runner-up to Caldwell Potter at the Cheltenham festival at odds of 125-1, was well fancied at Ballybrit but never got a chance to land a blow.
This will be a first time at three miles, but he was a winner at 2¾ miles over hurdles and drying ground at Listowel will be in his favour. He has also beaten You Oughta Know already this season.
Shane Fitzgerald takes over in the saddle, and he has a Kerry National under his belt already, having struck on the Joseph O’Brien-trained Assemble four years ago.
Earlier on the Wednesday’s Listowel card, the regally bred Davy Crockett will have a third racecourse start in a novice hurdle. Annie Power’s son impressed at Galway and could be too quick in the closing stages for the former Irish Leger hero Sonnyboyliston.
Separately, 41 entries are left in Sunday’s Friends of the Curragh Irish Cesarewitch after the latest acceptance stage. It is the fourth year that the two-mile handicap is worth a boosted €600,000.
Aidan O’Brien has won twice in the last three years, while his son Joseph saddled the shock 150/1 winner Magellan Strait in 2023. The pair have 16 of the entries remaining in the renewal between them.
