It is 70 years since the first Goffs Thyestes Chase – 60 since its most famous winner – and while racing has changed dramatically in that period the appeal of Gowran Park’s €100,000 highlight appears undiminished.
The Dan & Joan Moore Chase run at Fairyhouse a dozen days ago is a six-figure handicap too, but it’s not just traditionalists who will regard the Thyestes as the first prestige prize of 2024.
A full house of over 10,000 people is once again expected at the Co Kilkenny track’s midweek programme that is live on RTÉ2 television, with the big race due off at 2.50pm.
The throngs will be able to examine Gowran’s new weighroom facility, although it is tradition that’s always an integral part of the Thyestes appeal.
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With Arkle having won it en route to his first Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1964, and his illustrious stable companion Flyingbolt victorious a couple of years later, the handicap can boast the two highest rated steeplechasers of all time on its roll of honour.
The idea of top-flight horses conceding lumps of weight to inferior rivals has become largely redundant since then, leaving the Thyestes to fulfil a different role.
Hedgehunter landed the spoils in 2004 before a year later securing Grand National glory at Aintree. In 2005 Numbersixvalverde pulled off the same feat.
Like Hedgehunter, two other Thyestes winners from Willie Mullins’s nearby yard, On His Own and Djakadam, went on to finish runner-up in the Gold Cup at Cheltenham.
Topweight Bronn is among a trio of Mullins hopefuls in the 18-strong field as the champion trainer pursues a 10th victory in the race. But if teasing out a young talent that is ahead of the ratings has often been crucial to finding the winner, this year’s Thyestes looks the sort of handicap best described as competitive with a big C.
Gordon Elliott has half a dozen hopefuls as he chases a third Thyestes success, and last year’s runner-up Dunboyne has the assistance of the red hot Jack Kennedy. Dunboyne is 5lb higher in the ratings for his narrow defeat by Carefully Selected 12 months ago, but will relish this stamina test on the invariably testing midwinter ground conditions.
Irish racing’s two biggest stables have half the field between them, but it is Co Tipperary-based Sam Curling who has the ante-post favourite Angel’s Dawn. She supplied the leading point-to-point trainer with a first Cheltenham Festival success in last year’s Kim Muir, where Dunboyne was 13 lengths back in fourth. Curling has become a top supplier of future talent from his Cashel base in recent years, including no less than the unbeaten star Marine Nationale.
Last seen over fences when sixth in the Irish National, Angel’s Dawn has had two spins over flights this season, and will be the sole mare in the line-up. The last mare to win the Thyestes was Be My Belle 21 years ago. Angel’s Dawn’s rider Philip Enright won the Thyestes back-to-back on Priests Leap (2008-09).
Experience in the saddle is normally a plus in the Thyestes, but Danny Gilligan is no normal claimer and the 5lb he takes off another of the Elliott hopes, Fakir D’alene, could be crucial. The teenager already has a big handicap pot under his belt having landed the Galway Plate last summer.
Gowran’s main support event is the Grade Two John Mulhern Galmoy Hurdle for which the Elliott team rely on Farouk D’alene. Elliott is skipping the Galmoy with both last year’s winner Teahupoo and Irish Point as they continue preparations for the Stayers at Cheltenham. Instead Farouk D’alene, formerly a high-class novice chaser who reverted to flights in a Pertemps qualifier at Leopardstown over Christmas and got beaten just a neck, can secure the gruelling stamina test. Like Thedevilscoachman, he sport’s first-time cheekpieces and unlike another big player, Monkfish, he has race fitness on his side.
The Mullins team is likely to fancy its chances in the Ladies’ maiden hurdle with Jody Townend’s mount Captain Cody and also in the Beginners’ Chase with four of the seven runners. Tactical Move has been an intermittent presence in recent years but showed enough on his return to action behind stable companion Nick Rockett at Fairyhouse on New Year’s Day to suggest he can land this.
In other news the British Horseracing Authority has shelved plans to cap the number of runners a trainer can have in certain prestige cross-channel handicaps to four. It emerged last month that the BHA had consulted stakeholders about the idea which was focused on preventing dominance by one or two trainers in April’s Aintree Grand National.
“Having considered the feedback and discussed the matter at the sport’s commercial committee and BHA board, it has been agreed not to take any immediate action in regards to this matter, but to keep the issue under review,” a spokesman said.
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