BEEF OR SALMON STILL SERVING IT UP OVER HURDLES

There aren’t many three mile chasers that can switch back to hurdles and still run a pattern class time. But BEEF OR SALMON (37) did just that when winning a rather warm Conditions hurdle at Fairyhouse.

Beef Or Salmon remains a near unstoppable force on genuinely soft ground over fences, as he showed when beating War of Attrition last month. If he gets his ground in the Lexus Chase he’ll have a great chance of winning it for the fourth time.

CELESTIAL WAVE PROBABLY BEST IN MUD

CELESTIAL WAVE (38) needed the run badly on her seasonal debut according to trainer Adrian Maguire. Otherwise she has won all five times she’s raced on soft or heavy ground. Her latest success came in a rather warm renewal of the Listed Tara Hurdle at Punchestown.

Celestial Wave is at least Grade 3 class on this run. But Maguire clearly thinks she’ll be competitive in the very best company, and that looks perfectly possible seeing that she’s so lightly raced.

ARAN CONCERTO NEEDS TO RUN FASTER

Aran Concerto (34) ran a very ho hum sort of time to take the Grade 1 Barry & Sandra Kelly Memorial Novice Hurdle at Navan. I can see why the pundits are raving about him. The runner up, Footy Facts, had twice earned ratings of 38 from me. So that line of form indicates that in a more strongly run race Aran Concerto would have earned a rating of 41 from me which would make him the best novice hurdler around.

I prefer to see a horse actually run fast before I rate them that highly. So I’m going to withhold judgment on Aran Concerto for now. Personally I suspect that Noel Meade is right about the horse being primarily a chasing prospect and still regard De Valira as the one they all have to beat at Cheltenham

JAZZ MESSENGER CAN WIN SOMETHING BETTER

JAZZ MESSENGER (39) only had three rivals in a Listed hurdle at Thurles on Sunday. But he still managed to run a time that would win many Grade 2 events. Clearly he’s a very useful horse.

I note with interest that Jazz messenger has now won all four times he’s run at Naas or Navan, the two stiffest tracks in Ireland, and that he earned his best handicap rating when running well at the Cheltenham Festival in March. Clearly a stiff track suits him very well and I now have him in mind for the County Hurdle.

IN COMPLIANCE JOINS THE BIG BOYS

In each of the last two seasons Ireland has produced a young Gold Cup winner that showed dramatic improvement before winning the big race. IN COMPLIANCE (44) is very much in the same mould and showed far and away his best form to beat last year’s Gold Cup winner WAR OF ATTRITION (43) in the Grade 1 John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase.

It’s hard not to award In Compliance a seriously big speed rating for his win as the other two chases on the card were both over the same distance and he ran ten seconds faster than either of them. Lines of form point the same way too. So it looks clear that we have a live Gold Cup contender on our hands here.

War Of Attrition ran fast as ever to take second. This is despite the fact that he jumped left at several fences - due to being put off by Justified who was jumping to the left in front of him for a long way according to a shrewd race-reader that I know. On faster ground over three miles he might well be able to reverse the form and remains the one they all have to beat at Cheltenham in March. Having said that, I still have to say his record suggests he’s best fresher than he’ll be if he takes up his engagement in the Lexus Chase.

For the immediate future I think the one to take out of the race just has to be HI CLOY (34). Hi Cloy always seems to need his first couple of starts of the season. So far his record on his first two starts of the season shows eleven losses out of eleven runs. He's won 9 of his 22 starts later in the season. This was only his second run of the season and he did appear to blow up after going well for a long way.

Hi Cloy also hates heavy ground according to both his jockey and his trainer. He's run well below form all five times he's encountered what my going allowances say was heavy ground since his novice days. So he did well to run so well on hock deep ground here, especially seeing that it was so early in the season for him.

Hi Cloy is obviously a stuffy horse who needs a good deal of racing to get him fit. Not only has he never won on either of his first two starts, all of his wins have been off a break of four weeks or less. This run should therefore put him spot on for the King George. And unless one of the big names runs unexpectedly he’s going to be the fastest horse running in that race on my speed ratings. That’s something to consider seeing that Michael Hourigan really does seem to have found the knack of getting Hi Cloy ready for the really big races. The horse has in fact won four of the last five Grade 1 chases he’s contested after his first two starts of the season. This being so the widely available 33-1 about Hi Cloy for the King George does seem a tad generous.

NICKNAME (37) tired late and ran nowhere near as fast as he had over two miles last time. So I’m now forced to revise my thinking on the horse and have to believe his connections are right to plan on cutting him back to the minimum trip again next time.

DE VALIRA GETS MY VOTE FOR TOP IRISH NOVICE

DE VALIRA (39) won a red hot maiden hurdle at the big Fairyhouse meeting in spectacular time. And the amazing thing is that it was his hurdling debut.

My studies show that horses invariably improve about three points on my scale for their first start over timber. If De Valira did that it would make him well nigh unbeatable against novices.

I won't hear of De Valira getting beat at Leopardstown over Christmas, and I'm seriously thinking of raiding the piggy bank to have a few pennies on him for the Supreme Novices Hurdle at Paddy Power's very generous looking 25-1.

Runner-up ARRIVE SIR CLIVE (38) was one of the fastest bumper horses last season and ran every bit as fast here. I'm rather hoping that he goes for the Grade 1 Barry & Sandra Kelly Memorial Novice Hurdle at Navan on the seventeenth of this month where I can see him being a big price against Footy Facts and co. On my ratings he'd have a serious chance there. In the long term he's obviously going to be a chaser given his pedigree, and if he improves as much as he should over the bigger jumps he'll be a real star.

BRAVE INCA DIDN'T HAVE SUCH A HARD RACE AS IT LOOKED

BRAVE INCA (39) has always been a horse that's needed company in his races to ensure he gets competitive. He tends to lose interest in fields of six or less and has won just four times out of eleven in fields that small. He's won ten of his eleven completed starts in bigger fields, with his sole loss being a half length defeat in the Champion Hurdle. This being so I don't think we can read too much into his narrow win in the Hatton's Grace Hurdle. And I think it would be a big mistake to assume he had a hard race simply because jockey Tony McCoy was forced to ride him so hard for so long. I'd put this down to the fact that he always runs sluggishly in small fields and needs a lot of persuading to pick up his feet unless there are plenty of horses around him. The fact is he ran about ten lengths slower than his best here according to my speed ratings and I suspect that's a measure of how much he had in reserve.

I thought that ROSAKER (39) was a certainty for the race, partly thanks to Brave Inca's detestation of small fields.

Rosaker wasn't right all through the 2004-2005 jumps season according to his trainer. Toss those runs out and you'll see that he has a terrific record when fresh - that is on his first two starts of the season or with a five week plus break thereafter. He's won nine times out of 14 in these circumstances outside if the jump races he contested in the 04-05 season.

On his previous start Rosaker had run a seriously fast time to win at Navan. And he ran just as fast here.

Trainer Noel Meade says that Rosaker "worries a lot and he frets the minute you put the saddle on him." This makes a lot of sense to me as fretful horses get themselves fit at home but are invariably best when fresh. Rosaker certainly seems inclined that way so I won't be interested in him next time if he runs before the tenth of January. However whenever he's fresh he's always going to be a threat to take a big conditions hurdle like this one.

BROGELLA (38) ran her best ever race to take third. But she didn't improve as much as her SP of 66-1 might suggest. According to my speed ratings she's run a pattern class time four of the last five times she's gone two and a half miles. Clearly this is her optimum distance and I see her winning something decent over it before long.

ASIAM MAZE (34) seems to share Brave Inca's dislike of small fields, perhaps because she gets caught flat-footed when the pace quickens in slow run races. In any event it's interesting to note that she's now lost all four times she's run in fields of seven or less but won the last nine times she's completed the course in bigger fields in Britain and Ireland (she's probably not got the size or scope to jump the fixed brush hurdles she failed over in France). As far as I'm concerned you can safely toss this run out and bet Asian Maze to bounce back to form in a bigger field.

You can also forget the moderate run of AIL EILE (22).

At first glance Al Eile's bad run seems inexcusable. But look closely at his record since he started winning and you'll notice something that's very significant. 21 of his 23 runs have been on left-handed courses. This cannot be by anything other than choice because 18 of Ireland's 27 courses are right-handed. Now look back to his last win which came at Haydock and you'll see that the form book comments say "jumped left 2 out".

Al Eile ran a clunker the only other time he ran on a right-handed course over hurdles. Now he's gone and done so again. Clearly he jumps to the left and his connections are convinced he's better going that way around. Otherwise they'd have run him right-handed far more often seeing that there are so many more races that go that way around.

I reckon that Al Eile is at his best in small fields. He's won five of the last nine times he's gone left-handed in fields of nine or less. He can run really fast and has already won a Grade 1 event, so I'll be very interested in his chances next time he goes left-handed in a small field.

TUMBLING DICE IMPROVES AT TWO MILES

TUMBLING DICE (39) ran his best ever race to run away with the Grade 2 Hilly Way Chase at Cork in very good time. He's a smidge behind Champion Chase class on this form but clearly he's better over the minimum distance than he is over the two and a half miles or more he's mostly raced at before. And he won so impressively here I'd think twice about opposing him at two miles in the immediate future regardless of the opposition.

CAILIN ALAINN NOT THAT FAST

A seeming anomaly in jump racing is that Ireland has had most of the best chasers and hurdlers for years but Britain continues to dominate the big novice chases.

I think the explanation for the anomaly is that Irish trainers can still afford to focus on the slow maturing national hunt store horses because their owners have deeper pockets than their British counterparts. British trainers are forced to make do with a diet of ex-flat racers and the fast-maturing but equally fast to burn out French-bred jumpers. The British horses do very well as novices but the Irish ones overtake them later on.

In this regard I would not go overboard about the recent win of Cailin Alainn (37) in the Grade 1 Drinmore Novice Chase. There are stacks of British novice chasers that have run faster this season according to my ratings. I also suspect there are some faster novice chasers waiting in the wings locally.

HIDE THE EVIDENCE WELL UP TO STANDARD

It's awfully hard to come up with an accurate speed rating when only two races are run at a meeting as was the case at Fairyhouse last Sunday. But thankfully I had the previous day's racing to guide me. And since the relationship between the speed of the chase and hurdles courses 24 hours earlier point towards the same rating as lines of form do I can say with reasonable confidence that HIDE THE EVIDENCE (40) is well up to the standard of previous winners of the Royal Bond Novice Hurdle.

Hide The Evidence has now won all four times he's run over timber and has so far proven versatile as to distance and ground. This latter fact invariably suggests that a horse has been winning its races with a good deal in hand. Now that Hide The Evidence is racing at his proper class level I would anticipate some clear preferences emerging in his form. Until we know what those are all we can say is that he remains an unexposed horse that has shown Grade 1 form (at least in a novice context) over two miles on heavy ground on a galloping right-handed course. It may well be that he stays longer, goes left-handed equally well, handles tight tracks and faster ground.

My own prediction is that Hide The Evidence will prove best at two and a half miles. I say this because his dam's only other two foals that showed form were most effective over two and a half miles. In addition eight of the ten best hurdlers by his sire that ran six or more times have been best at two and a half miles plus. It's surely also significant that his previous best run according to my speed ratings came over 110 yards short of 2m 3f when he ran away with a maiden hurdle at Downpatrick.

It takes a good deal of stamina to win over two miles in very heavy ground. And my inclination is to believe that is what won Hide The Evidence this race. So if he gets done for pace on faster ground at two miles and ends up going for the Sun Alliance Hurdle over two and a half miles instead of the Supreme Novices at two I wouldn't be at all surprised.

CLOPF (37) didn't run at all badly to take second. He's probably a genuine two miler. So the desperate ground may well have made this a bit too much of a stamina test for him. Therefore I wouldn't go tearing up those ante-post vouchers for the Supreme Novices Hurdle. Clopf may yet prove good enough for that.

Incidentally, for those of you looking for statistical trends, the Royal Bond Hurdle has so far always been won by a horse that earned a Racing Post handicap rating higher than 105 on its hurdling debut. It's the season's first Grade 1 for novice hurdlers, so it makes sense that winners show smart form over timber right off the bat. This is something to watch out for next year.