Beef Hunting Champion Hat-Trick

Beef Or Salmon will try for a third win in the James Nicholson Wine Merchant Champion Chase at the weekend ? even though the ground is unlikely to be ideal.

Michael Hourigan's ace defeated Kicking King to land the three-mile feature in 2004 and denied War Of Attrition 12 months ago.

And Hourigan also intends to saddle Hi Cloy in the feature event at Down Royal on Saturday.

'Both horses will run,' said the Patrickswell-based handler.

'Beef Or Salmon is in good form, but I don't know who is going to ride him yet.

'I think the ground's quick, so we could do with a drop of rain.'

The going at the Ulster venue was described as good and officials do not expect conditions to alter much between now and the big race on the second day of the two-day fixture.

'The chase track is good. It's lovely ground and we're happy with it and looking forward to a couple of very interesting chases on Saturday,' said racecourse general manager Mike Todd.

'It's damp at the moment but there's no real rain of any consequence forecast so we don't anticipate the track changing.

'The hurdle track is good with good to firm in places which would account for five to 10%.

'The chase track is just genuinely good ground and based on the forecast we don't really anticipate it changing.'

Cashmans put the Paul Nicholls-trained Taranis in as 2-1 favourite, with both Beef Or Salmon and Robert Alner's The Listener quoted at 5-2 with a run.

(C) PA Sport