Thornton biding his time with talented Shanroe Karl Thornton has enjoyed a good start to the new year with back-to-back wins at Fairyhouse for progressive six-year-old Where’s Frankie and, after the latter’s emphatic win over fences last weekend, the Skerries handler provided an update on his stable star Shanroe. The classy dual-purpose performer has registered eight victories from twenty career starts including a premier handicap win at the Curragh last June and a fine fourth behind fellow Irish raider Sonnyboyliston in the lucrative Sky Bet Ebor in August. The Multiplex gelding was last seen when weakening out of contention in the November Handicap at Naas but Thornton feels his charge had a legitimate excuse for that below-par effort. “He got very sick after he came back from York and the ground was then wrong for him in Naas. He’s still not right and we haven’t got to the bottom of it. “He’s back off his holidays and is cantering away but his lung washes are coming back dirty. We need to get him back right first and then make a plan. “He might have a crack at a handicap hurdle in Fairyhouse at the Festival (where he won on Irish Grand National day last year) and then look at the good handicaps again on the Flat but if he’s not right we can’t go anywhere. “The form of the Ebor is obviously very smart with Johnny’s horse going on to win the Leger. “He wants summer soft but it was very testing on his last run at Naas.” Additional reporting by Alan Magee
