Saturday Six

Our regular Saturday racing feature, in association with the Pick Six bet from Tote Ireland, picks six (geddit?) horses we’ll be looking out for this weekend.

By Shane Breslin

Mikael D’Haguenet (1.05, Naas)

He may once have been heralded as a potential superstar and while a mixture of things has ensured that didn’t happen – including injuries and the fact that trainer Willie Mullins has equine superstars poking their heads above virtually every stable-door – there’s no doubt Mikael D’Haguenet is still one to set the pulse racing.

He's at least been back in the winners' enclosure this season (twice) and he receives weight from Luska Lad, so barring mishaps there should be no excuses this time.

Kentford Grey Lady (2.05, Ascot)

The mares arena is high on quality at the moment, especially on this side of the Irish Sea. Quevega from the Willie Mullins yard has raised the bar for racing mares over the past couple of years, Dermot Weld’s hugely promising five-year-old Unaccompanied is being talked up as a possible Champion Hurdle contender and the Colm Murphy-trained Voler La Vedette is exceptional in her own right.

They haven’t many mares in England to hold a candle to those three, but Kentford Grey Lady could develop into the best staying mare in training. She has been hugely impressive in her last two starts, and will be fancied to come out on top again when she takes on her own sex at Ascot today.

Joseph Lister (2.35, Ascot)

When Nicky Henderson sends out a lightly-raced improver with an absolute featherweight on his back for a valuable handicap, everyone should take note. Joseph Lister would be close to bottom weight anyway were it not for the 10-pound claim afforded by promising young jockey Gary Derwin, who’s already won aboard this one two weeks ago. He was well above average on the Flat and could prove to be a fair bit better than his current hurdles rating of 126. And if that is the case then he’s in with a great shout today, albeit in a competitive race against much more experienced rivals.

Forpadydeplasterer (3.10, Ascot)

The arguments that Forpadydeplasterer (main picture, on the left) might be
(a) a tiny bit past his best, and
(b) a tiny bit less than top class
are probably fair enough.

Still, he should at least be competitive in the feature race at Ascot today, the Victor Chandler Chase. Tom Cooper’s ten-year-old has been facing the best two-milers Ireland has to offer this winter, finishing third to Big Zeb on two occasions. A repeat of either of those runs (Noble Prince was second each day, suggesting that the form is rock solid) should put him in with a shout here, for the simple reason that Ireland holds sway in the two-mile game, with three of the first four home in the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham last March coming from this part of the world. Forpadydeplasterer may not be up to beating the best of ours, but he could beat the best of theirs. And at the time of writing he’s 12/1 to do it.

Ninetieth Minute (2.25, Fairyhouse, Sunday)

A former winner of one of the most competitive handicap hurdles of the season, the Coral Cup at Cheltenham, Tom Taaffe’s nine-year-old hasn’t been seen since finishing down the field on his chasing debut 15 months ago. He makes his reappearance in the beginners chase on Fairyhouse’s Sunday card, and it will be interesting to see whether he can start making up for lost ground.

Tailors Hill (3.30, Fairyhouse, Sunday)

Barry Geraghty is an eye-catching booking for Mary Louise Hallahan’s six-year-old in Fairyhouse’s low-grade handicap hurdle. The fact that Tailors Hill carries top weight owes more to the standard of the race than any particularly good performances on the track, but with Geraghty taking over from claimer RJ Jones, more could be expected here.