Listowel© Photo Healy Racing
Many go to Listowel in the hope of having their cards marked for the upcoming winter jumps action and while the Kerry Petroleum INH Flat Race is the final event on Tuesday's card, nobody will be leaving early.
Six of the eight runners in the two-miler will be sampling racecourse action for the first time.
Churchtown Glen heads the list for the Mick Winters yard, and this youngster will be ridden by the 2016 champion novice point-to-point rider Chris O'Donovan.
O'Donovan will don the silks of a legendary figure from between the flags, Jimmy Gordon, a veteran owner and top rider in the point-to-point fields way back in 1958.
Churchtown Glen is by up-and-coming sire Getaway, and his half-brother Churchtown Champ finished second in a bumper here at the 2015 festival.
Michael Hourigan and Charles Byrnes have noteworthy newcomers as well.
Hourigan will give daughter Laura the leg-up on the Footstepsinthesand filly Sand Fly.
She's out of the Priolo mare Laetitia, forever remembered for her part in an infamous bumper at Cork in 2005.
Charles Byrnes trained Laetitia then and when she was beaten by a stable companion, lengthy bans were imposed on horse and rider under Rule 212.
As a broodmare, she's already produced a winner so the chances of Sand Fly need to be taken seriously.
Byrnes himself pitches Stacey's Pride into the mix. He's booked champion point-to-point jockey Barry O'Neill for the spin, and the daughter of Stowaway will need to be monitored in the market.
In the John F. McGuire Beginners Chase, Capital Force starts off over fences for Henry de Bromhead and Davy Russell.
Clipper Logistics Group Ltd own this fellow, and what a weekend it was for Steve Parkin's outfit after the win of Suedois in their own Group Two Boomerang Stakes at Leopardstown on Saturday.
Capital Force runs for the first time since his eighth placing behind Labaik in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle.
