Tomorrow’s Leopardstown card might have the Grade One glory but today’s action has the majority share of a weekend prize-money pot worth more than €550,000 and
David Casey
could be the jockey to bring off a lucrative big handicap double.
The veteran rider teams up with Talbot Road for the first time in the Leopardstown Chase and his ability to make a light weight can also come up trumps in the other €100,000 feature, the Boylesports Hurdle, where he comes in for the ride on Sea Light.
Davy Russell was on board Sea Light when he landed a pair of handicaps at Leopardstown over Christmas but Russell's days of doing 9st 12lb are long gone so Casey takes the reins on a horse having just his ninth career start.
Just above him in the list of runners is the long-time ante-post favourite Quick Jack who has looked a natural candidate for this race ever since winning at Cheltenham in November. Paul Carberry is on his back this time while JP McManus, who has never won this high-profile handicap, is represented by a four-strong team that includes the cross-channel raider Snake Eyes.
In some ways the most interesting of the McManus runners is Reizovic, favourite for this race two years ago until injured, while Willie Mullins runs both Blood Cotil and Primroseandblue.
Sea Light is now 11lb higher than when scoring here on the last day of the Christmas festival but he was hardly suited by a slow pace that day and he hit the front plenty soon enough for anything else to potentially use him as a target if they were able to quicken. That nothing got close to even presenting as a real danger, and that Sea Light was well on top at the line, indicates a horse still on the upgrade.
Should suit
Trainer Charles Byrnes won this race with Dromlease Express a decade ago and even allowing for the weight-hike, Sea Light is still at the right end of the scale and a furiously run two-miles should suit him.
Talbot Road will have just his eighth start in the big chase, and just his third run ever over fences, which means he faces a huge task against 21 opponents, all of whom he’s conceding experience to. That he comes here on the back of an odds-on defeat on New Year’s Day is hardly a plus point either.
And yet despite all that, Talbot Road looks dangerous. That defeat to Civena at Fairyhouse was disappointing but he did jump left that day and there’s no getting away from the significance of Arthur Moore’s decision to pitch him straight into handicap company this afternoon.
This day was always special to Moore over the years, when the big hurdle was run under various names, and he last won the Leopardstown Chase nine years ago with Marcus Du Berlais.
Talbot Road is a horse he has always thought the world of, something that hardly changed after his first start over fences at Punchestown.
Today's Graded feature is the Killiney Novice Chase where an 11lb weight concession to Djakadam looks too much for his three opponents.
