PUNCHESTOWN’S meeting on Sunday comprised mostly single figure fields but there was some quality and interest therein. Most of all, we got to see how good Andy Dufresne was again, and, again, the answer was “quite good but not very good”.

The big horse with a big reputation had been beaten on merit by Latest Exhibition at Navan and repeated his 141 timefigure in accounting for Captain Guinness (138) by three-quarters of a length in the Grade 2 Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle.

Sectionals

It looked fairly hard work, though sectionals confirm that the early pace was far from demanding which resulted in the free-going runner-up being given his head before halfway. Andy Dufresne may be a bit better at 20 furlongs, but Captain Guinness shapes like a two-miler at present.

Carefully Selected will be heading towards the other end of the distance range if reports of the National Hunt Chase being his target are realised. He was pretty convincing in winning the Killiney Novice Chase by a wide margin from City Island, though only after 141-rated Speak Easy came down at the last when looking likely to be beaten by three to four lengths.

The overall time was not great – only 6lbs quicker than the handicapper Chavi Artist after weights carried are taken into account – but that was down to a steady early pace in the novice. Carefully Selected gets a base figure of 128 elevated to 145 on sectionals (149 is the National Hunt Chase-winning standard).

Fairyhouse

There were good wins from Annamix and Charlie Stout at Fairyhouse the day before, though the latter was much faster than the former, and their respective figures are 117 (raised to 130 on sectionals) and 144.

Ard Abhainn won a nice prize in the listed mares’ novice hurdle at Thurles on Friday, but in a time fully 9.5s slower than Energumene in the later bumper. Their respective timefigures are only 72 and a fairly useful 109.

Lord promises

A performance of unexpected promise came at Clonmel on Thursday, when Lord Royal galloped to a wide-margin success. His time was much quicker than those of the winners of the other two races at the distance, including Tiger Tap Tap (109, but 128 on sectionals) in the Munster Hurdle, and Lord Royal looks a proper candidate for good novices later on.

His basic timefigure of 141 gets edged up to 145 on the back of strong late sectionals, and that latter figure is just two below what it normally takes to win an Albert Bartlett at the Cheltenham Festival. I have backed him at 33s for that.