First big National of the jumps season returns with a Cheltenham Festival legend heading the market
THE first big National of the season is back – and a Cheltenham Festival legend is heading the market.
Dual Stayers’ Hurdle king Flooring Porter is the 7-1 favourite for Wednesday’s Kerry National at Listowel in Ireland.
Gavin Cromwell’s nine-year-old wasn’t massively convincing over fences last season but he’s being aimed at the £170,000 race for boisterous owners Flooring Porter Syndicate.
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He will face 17 rivals in the 3m Grade 3 won last year by one-time Grand National fancy Desertmore House.
Gordon Elliott will be represented with five runners, including the hotly fancied Zanahiyr, the ride of Jack Kennedy.
Ultima fifth and Grand National runner The Goffer will be saddled up too.
Willie Mullins’ jockey Paul Townend has been jocked up on Rich Ricci’s seven-year-old Horantzau D’airy.
Former Brown Advisory winner The Real Whacker, who was pulled up in last year’s Gold Cup, makes his seasonal return for trainer Patrick Neville.
The race, the feature of the Listowel Harvest Festival, will be off at 4.20pm on Wednesday and live on Racing TV and bookies’ streams.
Guinness Kerry National odds via Paddy Power
7-1 Flooring Porter
8-1 Perceval Legallois, Thecompanysergeant, The Real Whacker, Zanahiyr
10-1 Amirite, Duffle Coat, Solitary Man
12-1 Desertmore House, Fakir d’Oudairies
16-1 Busselton
20-1 Chemical Energy, Horantzou D’Airy, Toss Again
25-1 Lucid Dreams
33-1 Churchstonewarrior, Hurricane Georgie, The Goffer
66-1 Real Steel
100-1 Embittered, Falco Blitz
Guinness Kerry National tip
A really, really, really difficult race to decipher. It’s never easy at the start of a season, is it?
Some like The Real Whacker, while possessing some real class, will be returning after 151 days and probably in need of the run.
Fakir d’Oudairies was runner-up to Galopin Des Champs previously and is a Grade 2 winner over fences, but it’s hard to fancy him off top weight here.
Gavin Cromwell’s Perceval Legallois is a very solid jumper and you ignore the JP McManus silks at your peril in a big pot handicap.
Duffle Coat was a massive eyecatcher when a fast-finishing second in the Galway Plate with 3lb claimer Danny Gilligan on board.
He’s been put up 5lb for that and Gilligan, who gets the ride again, is no longer a claimer.
So while running off 8lb higher, he gets the trip and is happy on better ground.
But it’s Chemical Energy who looks a nice price at a best 16-1.
He met a wall of horses when in with a shout in the Galway Plate.
Things might have just happened too quickly for him at the end, as stablemate Zanahiyr contended the finish with Pinkerton.
Chemical Energy will be in first-time cheekpieces and the extra furlong and a half for this former National Hunt Chase second might just spring him into life.
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