HORSE RACING:GLOR NA MARA may currently be a 50 to 1 outsider for Saturday's Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket but the Jim Bolger-Kevin Manning team are looking forward to taking on Frankel and Co in the two-year-old highlight with their maiden colt.
This season’s Dewhurst is the most anticipated for a long time with Frankel due to take on Dream Ahead and Saamidd.
However, Bolger and Manning know what it takes to win the race having scored three victories in-a-row with Teofilo (2006), New Approach (2007) and Intense Focus (2008.)
The latter was a 20 to 1 shot and Manning yesterday insisted he believes the highly-touted Glor Na Mara remains a good prospect despite having failed to win in five starts so far.
“It’s frustrating he hasn’t managed to win but he was only beaten half a length in a Group One and there’s no doubt the engine is there. He’s a very good horse. But it looks a very good Dewhurst with Henry Cecil’s horse and Dream Ahead too,” Manning said yesterday. Glor Na Mara ran fifth to Pathfork in last month’s National Stakes at the Curragh but ground conditions should be different at Newmarket with final declarations for the Saturday action made this morning.
Manning could also be in action at Newmarket on board the Roscommon maiden winner Hurricane Havoc in the Rockfel Stakes, a race that the Bolger stable won with Finsceal Beo four years ago.
Colm O’Donoghue flies out to Toronto today to team up with the Aidan O’Brien-trained Joshua Tree in Saturday night’s €1.4 million Canadian International.
“I haven’t ridden at Woodbine before but I’ll ride the horse out on Friday and get to know things,” O’Donoghue said yesterday.
“I looked at some of the racing there over the weekend and the ground looked pretty quick. But our horse is a good mover and should be able to handle anything.
Joseph O’Brien left the Turf Club’s Appeals Referrals Committee on Tuesday night with six days worth of suspensions but the star apprentice will be back at Turf Club again soon after lodging another appeal against a three-day whip suspension he picked up at the Curragh on Monday.
Aidan O’Brien’s 17-year-old son, currently engaged in a thrilling three-way battle with Gary Carroll and Ben Curtis for the apprentice jockey’s title, received the suspension on Monday for his winning ride on Battleoftrafalagar.
O’Brien was suspended for the dates October 25th, 29th and 31st. No date has yet been set for this latest appeal but it is likely to be held next week.
There are just 15 racing days left in the Irish flat racing season and although on Tuesday O’Brien won an appeal against a two-day careless riding ban picked up at Dundalk last month, he failed in an appeal against a four-day ban for a race at Listowel and received a further two days for a whip offence in another race at the Listowel festival.
