Leopardstown 11th May 2014

Fascinating Rock

Fascinating Rock won the Derby Trial in the stewards’ room Sunday and while the controversy surrounded the enquiry it covered up the poor ride Pat Smullen gave the Fastnet Rock colt. In a slowly run race his race positioning was poor, sitting 2/3 lengths off the 2nd last horse at times and crucially when the pace quickened Smullen wasn't as urgent as McDonogh and just gave the horse too much to do .It was to the horse’s credit that he got as close. Fascinating Rock's chances of staying 12f around Epsom must be hugely doubtful given the pace he has shown in all his starts along with his breeding and also Ebanoran could come under the quirky banner having leant to the rail when asked for his effort but more tellingly leaning away from the whip when it was switched late on. Geoffrey Chaucer's reputation must come out of the race enhanced having received the usual softly softly ride for a Ballydoyle inmate on its seasonal debut who has a bigger target in the near future. He suffered two pieces of interference which certainly cost him huge momentum and seemed to get a crack of the Smullen's whip for good measure also. I would estimate that he was very close to being the best horse on the day and will probably prove to be the best of these in the future having to contend with a multitude of negatives, namely lack of a recent run, giving weight to all his rivals and the interference he suffered. The now 16/1 for the Derby looks inviting even though the feeling he is not considered to be anywhere near as good as Australia certainly emanates from Ballydoyle.

Other eye catchers from the racing yesterday would include Jack Naylor who reared and dumped Shane Foley before the start and proceeded to run very green and giving her rivals a big start before powering home to be only beaten just over 3.5l. Even allowing for the possibility of gaining cheap yards at the end of the race it was still an eye catching performance and a country maiden is surely a certainty. I say a 'country maiden' as this was a restricted maiden and probably not as strong as the usual 2yo maidens run at Leopardstown.
Shipyard is finally showing what his trip is and the 7f that he ran over yesterday looks to be it having travelled strongly over 8f twice and staying on well over 6f on his most recent outing. He may have been too close to a strong pace as those who raced prominently weakened markedly in the straight. He can be marked up for this run but he never seems to go unsupported and therefore may not be much value in the near future.

Marakoush is a horse who I think has attitude problems and is opposable no matter where he runs. He only consented to run on late yesterday and has shown awkwardness before in his run behind Fascinating Rock on seasonal debut. I'm sure he'll be sold for 5 maybe 6 figures at the HIT sales to go hurdling as some other sexy Aga/Oxx horses have been but he could turn out to be an expensive purchase.