Audience has Plenty to Live Up To Captive Audience, a half-brother to Ned Kelly and Nick Dundee, makes his belated debut in the Bennettsbridge Flat Race at Gowran tomorrow. The six-year-old is due to be partnered by Kevin Power and he was mentioned in a David Myerscough stable tour as far back as September 2007 when his trainer didn't hide his regard for the Saddlers' Hall gelding whom he reported had been nearly ready to run at the Punchestown Festival that spring. Today the recently married Kildare-based handler said: "Captive Audience has been with me the last couple of years and he was a weak horse when he first arrived so we just gave him a bit of time and he had a few niggley little things wrong with him last year. "I think he is a nice horse and hopefully he'll run in the first few tomorrow. The good ground will be fine for him." Captive Audience will be the first runner for Myerscough to carry the famous silks of his aunt, Mrs John Magnier. This twenty runner two-miler, confined to newcomers, will see many interesting participants line-up including Willie Mullins' Enterprise Park, Tom Taaffe's Cast In Stone with Katie Walsh up, and Sparkling Tara from the very much in-form John 'Shark' Hanlon yard. Brian O'Connell will don the well-known colours of Mrs Antoinette Mee on this four-year-old son of Kayf Tara. Elsewhere Hanlon sends Nazdaq into battle with Azana again, just three days after he went down by a length and a quarter to that rival at Downpatrick on Sunday, in the opening Goresbridge Handicap Hurdle. What makes this rematch even more interesting is that Conor O'Farrell, who rode Azana 'up North,' now joins forces with Nazdaq. He is certainly weighted to gain his revenge. The Mullinavat Novice Hurdle is worthy of mention too, Beneath The Radar representing the Black Apalachi Aintree National hopeful's, owner Gerry Burke and trainer Dessie Hughes. He faces eleven rivals in what appears to be an open heat. Noble Prince, a very good horse on the flat for Andre Fabre, gets another chance to show his worth over flights, now on better ground, in the Inistioge Maiden Hurdle. The Ballyhale Handicap Hurdle has many notable runners, including Let Yourself Go, Time Electric, Menwaal and Bluebyyou. (EM)
