Irish raiders at Newbury and Southwell on Saturday There were a huge number of Irish-trained runners in Britain for last week’s Cheltenham Festival but there will be significantly fewer over this weekend, when just two make the trip. One of the horses in question lines up at Newbury and the other is at Southwell in the evening. Newbury hosts the £100,000 Goffs Hundred Grand Bumper and Padraig Roche is set to have a tilt at the prize. Meanwhile, County Cork-based trainer Maurice Ahern sends over a very lightly raced filly in Southwell’s closing 7f handicap and there could be loads more to come from her. Sheactslikesummer - Newbury 15:35 Padraig Roche landed a Cheltenham Festival win last week courtesy of Saratoga’s impressive victory in the McCoy Contractors Juvenile Handicap Hurdle. That was his only runner in Britain this season and he has never sent one to Newbury before. It’s no surprise that the £100,000 prize fund has tempted him into sending one over on Saturday and Sheactslikesummer is an unraced five-year-old. The daughter of Getaway was a relatively cheap purchase at £15,000 and her dam won five times under rules. Roche is 0-2 in bumpers this term and is 1-16 in the last five seasons. That doesn’t necessarily bode well for her chances here and it’s hard to know what to expect, as we haven’t seen her on a racecourse before. It would be an odd move to send her over if connections didn’t think she had some sort of chance however, especially as her trainer has a 100% strike-rate in Britain this season. Too Sweet - Southwell 17:43 Too Sweet was initially owned by the big spending Amo Racing operation and trained by David Loughnane. She showed promise on her debut at Sandown in July 2024, where she kept on well to finish fifth, despite getting noticeably outpaced at an important stage of the race. Beaten less than two lengths on that occasion, it was a little bit of a surprise that she performed so poorly when upped to 6f at Thirsk on her next start. Perhaps the aggressive tactics failed to pay off, as she weakened tamely in the final furlong, finishing eighth. Switching to Raphael Freire after that, she produced a much improved performance to finish second by less than a length over 7f, 190 days later. Hanging to her right in the closing stages, she began to run out of steam but managed to hold on for second. She makes her debut for Ahern here and this is also her first start in handicap company, while she has been off the track for well over a year. It seems likely she will improve plenty for the run here but clearly the four-year-old is unexposed so don’t rule her out.
