Owners To Follow at Listowel's Harvest Festival Always a highlight in September, Listowel’s Harvest Festival provides some entertaining action over both codes. It kicks off on Sunday and we have seven days of racing to enjoy from the County Kerry track. With Flat and Jumps racing on offer, there could be a variety of owners to look out for across the week so we’ve selected four who could be in the winners’ enclosure a fair few times. They include the obvious one, JP McManus, who has several entries on Day 1 alone. JP McManus McManus is one of the sport’s most significant figures and he is a huge supporter of Irish racing and has horses with practically every trainer in Ireland at this point. The main event of the week is the valuable Kerry National on Wednesday and it’ll be a surprise if he doesn’t have several runners. His Day 1 entries should be of interest for starters and he could have a winner in the opening three-year-old hurdle with ex-Flat recruit Desmond Castle. Last time out winner Glitz And Glamour could line up in the mares’ handicap hurdle and the Willie Mullins-trained Jalila Moriviere will surely be of interest. Barry Connell Focusing on quality over quantity, successful businessman Barry Connell exclusively trains his own horses and already has an impressive CV. Champion Chase winner Marine Nationale is his stable star but all of his runners are worth looking out for. He knows how to train a staying chaser and if any of his horses line-up in the Kerry National, it would be unwise to rule them out. He could run Hashtag Pretender on Day 1 and he finished second on his chasing debut, so is entitled to improve for that. Amo Racing It was a big weekend for the Irish arm of the Amo Racing operation last week, and for trainer Adrian Murray in particular. Arizona Blaze came out on top in the Group 1 Flying Five Stakes and Bucanero Fuerte completed a 1-3 for the stable. Amo have several potential candidates should they line up on Day 2 at Listowel and it’s about time that Gran Habano finally gets off the mark. Coolmore The Coolmore partners are often hard to beat in Irish maidens and there will be plenty of opportunities for them at Listowel. They can get off the mark on Day 2 and it also helps that their main man, Aidan O’Brien, has 10 winners from just 31 runners at Listowel in the last five seasons. The impeccably bred Maestro Bernstein is out of Arc-winning mare Found and by the sire sensation Wootton Bassett. He could be set to make his belated debut on Monday and a smart performance would create plenty of buzz. Coolmore also have two fillies entered in the same race and Win Me Over, who finished second last time out, would be the most interesting of the two. Saratoga has two entries on the card and would be very competitive in both the maiden and the handicap.
