Paul Townend previews his Saturday rides at Naas

As you well know things don’t always work out but I had a good day at Gowran Park on Friday with four winners, including Ferny Hollow on his hurdles debut, and there is plenty to look forward to this weekend with ten rides over the next couple of days at Naas and Cork.

Captain Kangaroo (12.00) won a 2m2f bumper before the lockdown in March. He is dropping back to 2m here. He seems to jump well at home. His work has been nice. It looks a nice opportunity for him and I don’t think the drop back in trip will inconvenience him too much.

Gavin Cromwell’s horse Gabynako looks the main danger after finishing second on his last two runs, but our horse is fit and ready. It won’t be an easy task but it looks a nice opportunity for him to start over jumps.

Gars En Noir (12.30) fell and then won in France. He’s a huge, big horse and the ground will be no worry for him. He is going to make into a chaser in time but we will see what he can do over hurdles first.

Indiana Jones won well in Cork for Mouse Morris and Call Me Lyreen has won two for Gordon Elliott. It’s a Grade 2 so you are going to run into horses like this but we will know a lot more about Gars En Noir afterwards but it looks a nice place to start him off. 

Cash Back (13.02), Fakir d’oudairies and Notebook all ran in the Arkle. Cash Back and Notebook got very worked up before the race so just being back in Ireland will be a help for him. He’s won over course and distance. On ratings he is nicely treated.

Djingle is the race-fit horse but needs to improve over a stone to get involved. It will be fast and furious but the conditions of the race really suit our lad.

Dandy Mag (13.37) is lightly enough raced and has been hard enough to keep right. We haven’t seen him in a year when he ran poorly back over hurdles.

If you go back through his form he had a good run at Auteuil one day but we just need to get him to run well here and make a plan from there.

Stattler (14.12) won a bumper well and had a couple of nice placed efforts in winners’ races. He is probably going to be a staying chaser in the making.

We don’t know a lot about some of these from the bigger stables, but we like our lad. He’s been consistent in bumpers and will make into a better jumper than bumper horse.

On Sunday I’ll be at Cork with five more runners.

Paul