'Set for a winning debut' - William Hill Each Way Extra Challenge Series Mares INH Flat Race Tips Cork hosts a seven-race National Hunt fixture on Thursday and the concluding race is the William Hill-sponsored Each Way Extra Challenge Series Mares INH Flat Race. The challenge series consists of 50 races and it’s a great incentive for some of the smaller trainers in Ireland. The cash prizes on offer are very generous and this two-mile bumper for mares is only open to female riders, both professional and amateur. We’ve got a field of 13 to go through here and our expert has picked out two of their strongest fancies to consider and victory could go to Willie Mullins. Could this be a two-horse race? Willie Mullins is ineligible for series points here, as his total of 206 winners was a massive 156 above the threshold of 50 successes. That doesn’t stop him from having runners however and he runs debutante Emerald Enigma here, with Jody Townend on board. Fellow debutantes are Fromjago’stomilan, Ma Lumiere, the Charles Byrnes-trained Whizz Bizz and Dadou Part Two. Philip Rothwell trains the latter and he holds a substantial lead in the William Hill Each Way Extra Series, although it’s hard to know what to expect from his runner. Isdistheone looks like one of the more interesting of the previously raced runners and she has lots of experience. Her third behind Panjandrum at Clonmel in November is a fair piece of form. Henry de Bromhead’s The Besty Woman was fourth behind a smart winner at Naas last time. Emerald can outshine her rivals Willie Mullins’ EMERALD ENIGMA will surely be very hard to beat here, despite the fact that it’s her debut and she’s entitled to improve for the experience. Her dam was a bumper winner too and she’s closely related to the high-class hurdle and chase winner Identity Thief. Mullins already has 21 bumper winners to his name in Ireland this season and those successes have come from 70 runners, at a strike-rate of 30 per cent. It’s also far from the deepest bumper in terms of quality so with those factors in mind, the daughter of Buck’s Boum is set for a winning debut. Fascinating Queen is entitled to build on her debut Ray Cody has only had two winners this season, with both of those coming over fences, but it would be unwise to rule out his runner FASCINATING QUEEN here. It’s a slight concern that he’s 0-23 in this sphere over the last five seasons but this once-raced mare could rectify that. There was plenty to like about her performance on debut at Bellewstown back in August and she hasn’t been seen since. Prominent in the early stages, she took up the running with half-a-mile to go but couldn’t keep up with the winner, who pulled clear in the closing stages. Her half-sister won a maiden hurdle for this yard and another half-sibling, Wandering Ego, managed to win a bumper and a novice hurdle. Fascinating Queen would have learnt plenty from the experience and it would be unwise to rule out some improvement.
