Racing tips: Joseph O’Brien sets to win the Clonmel Oil Chase two years on the bounce

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I was pulling my hair out watching Bingoo's race at Hexham yesterday. In Novice races, where there's a short-priced favourite a lot of the others don't tend to ‘try' and settle for a position towards the rear so they can get a reduced handicap mark when they've made their three appearances in novice/maiden company. This happened with Bingoo, but fair play to the 3lb claimer, she was cool as a cucumber and the horse virtually won on the bridle, bridging the gap like it was nothing.

Clonmel 2:53

The Clonmel Oil Chase Grade 2 is often a nice race, and a race which Willie Mullins has farmed over recent years, getting wins with Kemboy and Douvan to name a few, so going against him might be a bad idea. However, I don't really like his two chances in this and I've opted for Joseph O'Brien's horse, DARASSO.

Tornado Flyer has always been a horse which has shown ability and is a horse Ruby Walsh put up as a horse to follow during his bumper days, so to see him win the 2021 King George was quite satisfying, although it was quite a shock. For some reason, his form has fallen apart since that win, with him being pulled up and finishing 7th two times in a row since, so based on that I think you have to dodge him, even though he is clearly capable of winning.

Paul Townend has opted to ride Blue Lord, who won for me two times last season and was a very good novice over 2m, but whether the novice company over the minimum trip were any good from last season, I'm not so sure, apart from the ones right at the very top like Edwardstone and Gentleman De Mee. They are trying a new trip today, which could suit as he did stay on well on his last start when beating Coeur Sublime, but I wouldn't be too confident in him, especially at the current odds.

Darasso seems a fairly solid candidate in this, he is shorter odds than I was hoping for, but at 5/2 I think he rates a good alternative to the favourite. He is a horse who is probably Grade 2 level at best, as when he goes up to Grade 1 he does tend to get found out, though he did run well over hurdles to finish 3rd behind Honeysuckle at the Punchestown festival earlier this year. I think today's trip is probably his ideal trip, he does stay 3m as we've seen from his last start in the Kerry National and when he was staying on strongly in the Galway Plate over 2m 6f behind Hewick. The Hewick form is good in my opinion, he's a lovely horse who is apparently being targeted for the Gold Cup. I don't think he's good enough to win that, but he is now rated 167 so you can't fault them for trying. Darasso's last run came 57 days ago, so arrives at Clonmel fresh but also has the fitness edge over the rest of this field and I think that could be a big factor. Conditions are soft to heavy so this will be a stamina test, so knowing he should be fit and does stay slightly further should also play into his strengths.

Joseph O'Brien won this race last year for J P McManus with Fakir D'oudairies, so it's a good indicator that they fancy their chances in this having a runner for the same connections.

I feel like the Mullins horses might be a little undercooked in terms of fitness as surely this is a pipe-opener for some bigger targets in the future.

Market Rasen 2:30

Not the strongest fancy I'll ever put up but I will be giving a chance to EAST STREET who is making his chase debut in this Class 3 race at Market Rasen.

Going into a chase debut in a Class 3 seems a little strange considering he is rated 114 which means he would get into a Class 4 race, and probably race against much worse opposition, but with that gamble comes a statement and confidence around this horse. Being an ex-Irish PTP horse it's not hard to see why he wouldn't prefer fences than hurdles, and it's not a great surprise to see him making his debut over fences in his second season as a racehorse. They didn't hang around over hurdles, with just five runs under his belt, which yielded 2 wins and a further 2 placed efforts, so considering he is bred to be a chaser, that's not bad going.

The form of his hurdles runs isn't bad considering he is only rated 114. He beat Kinodo Kwetu who has since become a very good chaser, now rated 137 over fences after racking up 5/5 wins this season, which also had William Cody in behind who was a winner over fences for this thread a week or so ago. On his second start over hurdles, he bumped into a nice horse called Since Day One, who was a progressive hurdler for the Donald McCain yard, winning 4/6 races and being rated 130, as well as winning on chase debut a few weeks ago.

If you watched his last win at Hexham, he did jump some of his hurdles with plenty of air which suggests he would prefer a fence and probably why he didn't progress as much as they'd like as he isn't a low slick jumper which is what is required, but that means he should be fine over fences.

He gets into this race off bottom weight of 10st 6lbs. Fitness will have to be taken on trust, but as I said, if they think he is capable of running against better-rated horses, they must think he is fit enough to do himself justice. The form of the yard is a concern, but they got a win at Hexham yesterday, which is nice to see. Brian Hughes does the steering, so hopefully, he doesn't be too lackadaisical which is probably one of his flaws, and he gives him a positive ride and gives him plenty of vision into his fences.

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