10 Dec 2006

A good days racing in Ireland with two meetings on in Cork and Punchestown. A mouth watering prospect is the renewal of the John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase where the line up includes luminaries such as War of Attrition, Hi Cloy, In Compliance, Justified and Nickname. War of attrition is worthy favourites but in such a high quality line up he is no certainity. His ideal conditions is 2 mile 6 and fresh where he has a strike rate of 5/5. He has had his 5 week minimum break which he needs to preform at his best. The only worry is the distance as he has only a 1/3 success rate at 2mile 4. Im expecting a big run from In Compliance whose trainer reckons this horse is better than people think. He will love the heavy going, distance and course. Nickname also looks interesting. He had an amazing start to his chasing career last year with two wins in Leopardstown including the Grade 2 event last january. He won first time out this season in Navan and with the booking of Ruby Walsh for thr first time, this could bring about the change necessary to wiin this Grade 1 event.

If I was to call it i would have to go for War of attrition however i would not back it as 2/1 is too short, so the value selection would have to be In Compliance if you could get on at 9/2. Nickname is too short at 7/2, I think 7/1 would be the right price. An honorably mention for Justified who is in with a shout but suspect trainer form would make me pass.

As it is a such a tight race, i will not decide if i will back In Compliance until tomorrow however the following are my definite bets.

Value Lays
Cork 1.45 Kill Devil Hill <4/1
Kempton 3.30 Moyoko < 4/1

HS Backs
None

Value Backs
Punchestown 3.05 Toofarback >5/2


This looks like the ideal opportunity for Too Far Back to accomplish his first chase win after 2 decent attempts in a higher class race than this and hopefully can eliminate those mistakes which cost him a place or two in his last race and his true class can show.

I have also back tested the HS backs system a bit more and had modified a few things which will reduce the selctions and hopefully keep the strike rate at around 35%.