Naas & Bellewstown: Essential Tips for Saturday's Key Races Ireland hosts two meetings on Saturday and Naas’ seven-race Flat card features the Listed Pat Smullen Stakes. The Bellewstown Festival also continues and they host a National Hunt fixture with the €60,000 Bellewstown Handicap Hurdle as the main event. Ireland’s action begins at 1.57 with Naas’ first race and concludes with Bellewstown’s final event at 8.30. We’ve picked out three horses to follow across the day and they include an Aidan O’Brien-trained runner in Naas’ Listed contest. Selections 4.17 Naas - Daytona 5.20 Naas - First Wave 6.30 Bellewstown - Stuntman Steve bet365 Betting Offer If you already have a bet365 account, check out more of the best betting sites and online casinos 4.17 Naas - Daytona Eight runners have been declared for the Irish EBF Pat Smullen Stakes, a Listed race over a mile for two-year-olds. Aidan O’Brien’s two-year-olds have been on fire so far this season and that trend is showing no signs of stopping. Daytona made his debut at Gowran last month and he produced a very professional display to score by two-and-a-quarter lengths. Always in touch with the leaders, he hit the front with a furlong or so to go and quickly put the race to bed. This Listed contest looks like a sensible next step and you would imagine he wouldn’t need to find much improvement in order to come out on top once again. Ballydoyle juveniles tend to progress significantly between their first and second starts however so it’s likely that there’s more to come from him. North Coast looks like the main danger but this son of Wootton Bassett should have too much for him. 5.20 Naas - First Wave First Wave took longer to get off the mark than most Ballydoyle inmates but he was an impressive winner of a Gowran maiden over a mile on his penultimate start. The front two were clearly a cut above the rest that day and the runner-up won his next start easily. Things didn’t quite go to plan in the St James’s Palace Stakes last time out, as he missed the break and was unable to make it to the front of the field, as he was supposed to be Henri Matisse’s pacemaker. A sharp drop in grade was absolutely the right call and better is expected here. The drop back to 7f perhaps isn’t ideal but he can get away with it at this level, especially if positive tactics are employed and it becomes a test of stamina. He doesn’t have much to find at the weights and the best is surely yet to come. 6.30 Bellewstown - Stuntman Steve There’s a decent prize pot on offer here and Gavin Cromwell’s Stuntman Steve looks very interesting. The six-year-old remains relatively lightly raced over hurdles, having had just eight starts, and five of those have come in handicap company. He managed to win relatively comfortably at Listowel, despite not jumping with fluency, so he’ll need to jump better here. The handicapper put him up 5lb for that success but conditional jockey Alix Balfe takes 7lb off here, leaving him in a pretty good position. That was a career-best effort when last seen and a similar performance would surely give him every chance of following up.
