Sligo preview

Action returns to Sligo for the first time this year on Sunday and no doubt the executive will be well pleased with the class of runner the seven-race all-Flat card has attracted.

The Kennedy's Bar Sligo Handicap is the most valuable event of the session and there are three previous course winners in it including Sailors Warn, who appears to have an outstanding chance.

Connections have been mixing it with this Redback gelding and they got some reward when he defeated no less a rival than Thousand Stars at Leopardstown in early March.

A well-backed beaten favourite over timber last time, at Fairyhouse on Easter Sunday, Sailors Warn reverts to the level now with the plus of having a rider at the peak of his powers aboard in Fran Berry.

Indeed Berry has a good book of rides and is entitled to be reasonably optimistic for the likes of Calling You (3.40), Toe The Line (4.15), Lady Clitico (5.25) and Ode To Psyche (5.55).

The only race the Kildare man, who accomplished so much in Japan earlier in the year, does not have a mount in is the opening Join The 2014 Sligo Race Supporters Club Fillies Median Auction Maiden.

Champagne Or Water was strongly expected to deliver at Tipperary last time. The extended six furlongs should suit Willie McCreery's filly better now and she is fancied to upstage Cultured Lady (rated 1Ib her superior) and Muileata, who has the benefit of experience in handicap company.

Paul Deegan said of Cultured Lady: "She probably ran OK at the Curragh, but it was probably a bit soft for her. The ground may have gone for her in Sligo."

Elsewhere, Hannah's Magic, recently described by her trainer Arthur Moore as "a nice filly with a good attitude", has to be considered for the www.countysligoraces.com Handicap. Talented 3Ib claimer Conor Hoban is a native of the neighbouring county of Mayo and he will be keen to make an impression on the three-year-old.

Deegan has top-weight Coldstream in this one, and said: "We are putting the blinkers on to help him. The ground may have gone for him as he's a good ground horse."