Park Paddocks, left© Photo Healy Racing
Punchestown Festival hero Park Paddocks has a good opportunity to get back on the winning trail at Bellewstown this evening.
Gordon Elliott ’s four-year-old was a comprehensive winner of a valuable handicap hurdle at Punchestown, but has struggled since at Listowel and Down Royal since from his elevated mark.
However, he reverts to novice company for the Thatch Bar And Restaurant Novice Hurdle and while he must concede weight to recent Downpatrick-winning stablemate Count Simon as well as John McConnell’s useful dual-purpose mare Pearl Of The West Park Paddocks should prove hard to beat.
The bumper eight-race card consists of five Flat races and three hurdle races and the most valuable event of the evening is the 16,500 euro Seamus Mulvaney Crockafotha Handicap Hurdle.
Likely contenders for this two-and-a-half-mile contest include recent winners Rocky Court (Stephen Mahon) and Rio Lobo (Henry de Bromhead), the Joseph O’Brien-trained Bhutan and Major Destination from Noel Meade’s yard, who has been off the track since winning a beginners chase at Ballinrobe last August.
Joseph O’Brien runs Roscommon scorer Gold Seal in the concluding Anglo Printers Irish EBF Handicap Hurdle and his biggest threat could be De Bromhead’s Mullinavat who has won three of his last four starts.
The first five races are all run on the level, the first being the 16,000 euro Irish Stallion Farms EBF (C & G) Median Auction Maiden.
The clear form pick is Mick Halford’s Fairyhouse runner-up Lethal Turbo but three Joseph O’Brien-trained newcomers — Calorific, Colfer Me and Cosmic Horizon — are worth a market check.
Tom McCourt’s Stamp Of Authority, a winner over the course and distance on Wednesday, has been declared to make a swift reappearance in the Hibernia Steel Products Claiming Race, with 7lb claimer Karen Kenny keeping the ride.
