IT will be harder than ever for owners and trainers to get their horses into the Galway Plate and Hurdle this year, reckons senior National Hunt handicapper Noel O’Brien.
The two feature races at Ballybrit’s summer festival have seen steady increases in quality over the past 10 years as prize money has increased and improvements arisen in the general standard of summer jumping.
This year’s Plate is worth €220,000 and the Hurdle has a prizefund of €300,000.
The Plate has produced a string of top class chasers in recent years. The 2013 winner Carlingford Lough went on to win two Irish Gold Cups and a Punchestown Gold Cup. Road To Riches, the 2014 winner, landed two Grade 1 chases that same season and finished third in a Cheltenham Gold Cup, while last year the subsequent Aintree Grand National winner Rule The World was travelling like a winner in the Plate when falling at the second last fence.
Although the entries for this year’s running have yet to be published, trainer Noel Meade has indicated that Road To Riches is on course to reappear in the race. Currently rated 162, he would be the highest-rated horse ever to run in the race.
O’Brien said: “There used to be a clear differentiation between summer and winter jumping – that line is now blurred and it’s primarily because of the huge prize money on offer at Galway.”
SIMILAR TRANSFORMATION
He noted that the Galway Hurdle has undergone a similar transformation. “The days of looking for a horse who could win the amateur race on the Monday before winning the Hurdle on Thursday are probably gone.
When you see flat horses of the Max Dynamite’s calibre going for the Galway Hurdle you know it has become a prestigious race. That makes it harder to get horses into these races.
The lowest-rated horse in last year’s Galway Hurdle ran off a mark of 135. Bottom weight in the County Hurdle at Cheltenham last March was the winner Superb Story, who ran off 138 but carried 10st 12lb in what was a condensed weight range.
Trained by Dan Skelton, Superb Story is now rated 145 in Britain and has been rested since Cheltenham with the Galway Hurdle in mind.
“He’s in really good form,” Skelton told At The Races. “It’s worth so much money. I know he’s a high-class horse to be having in at this time of year but it’s a high-class race. It’s always been the plan after Cheltenham. He’ll love the ground, it’s worth a lot and if he can win a race like that he’ll be stepping in to the open-grade afterwards. You don’t have to be a Champion Hurdle winner to run in the Champion Hurdle.
“He’s good with a big gap in between his races. You can give him a month off after Galway and still have him back in time for what you want.”
Road To Riches will school over fences next week. Noel Meade’s top-class chaser has not been seen since he took a horrible-looking tumble when still in front at the second-last of the Punchestown Gold Cup.
“Michael (O’Leary) has been thinking about it (Galway Plate) for a while and said after Punchestown if he was okay to train him again for the Plate. Despite the fall he seems to have come out of it okay. We haven’t schooled him yet but he’s ready to school.
“We’ll give him a pop next week to see if it’s had any effect on him, but he’s in very good form. With so many highly-rated horses in training at this time of the year there’ll be a full field but I’d still expect him to have top weight.”
Other good chasers being aimed at the Plate include Emma Lavelle’s Junction Fourteen, last year’s winner Shanahan’s Turn plus stable companions Sadler’s Risk and Home Farm, the Willie Mullins-trained Alelchi Inois and Charles Byrne’s Shanpallas.