Wednesday 2nd September 2009
All set for strong Irish 'Ces' bid
Jockey Eddie Ahern with last year's totesport.com Cesarewitch winner Caracciola
Irish trainers John Queally and Pat Flynn look set to launch strong challenges on this year’s £160,000 totesport.com Cesarewitch after the weights for Newmarket’s prestigious heritage handicap were revealed today, Wednesday, September 2.
The two and a quarter mile contest is part of the highest-class day of Flat racing in the British calendar, Champions’ Day, on Saturday, October 17, that also features six Group contests.
Co Waterford-based Queally is optimistic that his stable-star Al Eile (8st 10lb) will return to contest the totesport.com Cesarewitch after the nine-year-old was fourth behind Leg Spinner and last year’s winner Caracciola in 2007. He is currently rated a 20/1 chance for the race with sponsor totesport.
The talented dual-code performer, a four-time Grade One winner over hurdles, was forced to miss last year’s race with a suspensory ligament injury but bounced back to form when he comfortably landed a 12-furlong Polytrack contest at Dundalk at the end of February.
Queally revealed: “As things stand, Al Eile will hopefully line up in the totesport.com Cesarewitch - he’s going to be making his seasonal comeback at around that time and it’s a race that we would very much like to run him in.
“He ran very well to be fourth in 2007 and we had to miss last season’s race because he was injured. He was turned out straight after he ran at the Grand National meeting at Aintree but he is back in work now and I would be hopeful that we can get him to Newmarket.
“He would be racing off a similar mark to the one he ran off two years ago and we would like to think that we could get him back to that level. There will be the usual big hurdle races for him afterwards, definitely starting off with the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle with all roads leading to Aintree.”
Queally may also be represented by the five-year-old mare Elyaadi (33/1 & 7st 13lb), who landed a two-mile contest at Wexford in May and, like Al Eile, also sports the famous blue and green silks of Michael Ryan, memorably carried to victory by Finsceal Beo in the 2007 Stan James-sponsored 1000 Guineas.
He added: “We also gave Elyaadi an entry in the totesport.com Cesarewitch but she would have to win between now and then to get in off her current mark. She was third in a three-runner race at Killarney on July 14, but it was a typical small-field contest and they sometimes throw up funny results.
“She’s won over two miles and handles any ground but she would have to improve to make it to Newmarket.”
The Pat Flynn-trained Bahrain Storm (12/1 & 8st 12lb) is also on course for the totesport.com Cesarewitch following an audacious double at the Galway Festival. The six-year-old, currently 12/1 second favourite with totesport, stormed to a six-length victory in the Galway Hurdle on July 30 and returned to the same course 24 hours later to record a comfortable success under rising star Gary Carroll in a 14-furlong Flat race.
The Co Waterford handler said: “Bahrain Storm is very much on course for the totesport.com Cesarewitch. He was back up to his racing weight two days after his last race at Galway and we had to run on the Flat there because he was so well in.
“He got away with running off a mark of 98 there and the handicapper left him alone afterwards, which was great. All being well, we will be over for Newmarket and he might have a run between now and then. There are a few courses of action open to him and we will see how things pan out between now and mid-October.
“Gary Carroll rode him at Galway but I think that Danny Grant might be on him in the totesport.com Cesarewitch. It all depends if the weights go up and we will look at the whole picture nearer the time.”
The weights for this year’s totesport.com Cesarewitch are headed by the Andy Turnell-trained Blue Bajan (25/1 & 9st 11lb), who was runner-up to subsequent Coronation Cup winner Ask in the Group Two Yorkshire Cup in May. Swingkeel (10/1 & 8st 11lb), from the yard of John Dunlop, propelled himself to the head of the betting after an impressive victory in a competitive York handicap at the Ebor meeting and is currently totesport’s 10/1 market leader.
