Five Robcour dark horses to follow: 'absolutely bolted up when making her debut' One of the shrewdest operators in the game, Robcour (Brian Acheson), owns some of Ireland’s best horses in training. This includes the likes of Teahupoo, Bob Olinger and Gerri Colombe, and he has another strong team to go to war with this season. He has heavily invested in Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead and that policy has provided a significant amount of success. We’ve selected five Robcour-owned dark horses who could be worth following across the season. Look To The West This mare won an Irish point at Dromahane before joining De Bromhead and got off the mark at the first time of asking over hurdles, beating the useful Bioluminescence. A couple of defeats in graded company followed, but she ran respectably both times. We only saw her twice over fences last season and she managed to win convincingly over 2m4f at Kilbeggan in April. Connections think a lot of her and are reportedly excited to see what she can do this season. Mange Tout French import Mange Tout absolutely bolted up when making her debut at Compiegne in May and she was bought privately afterwards. Trainer Elliott hasn’t been too secret about how much he rates this three-year-old and she has impressed him with her attitude. She made her stable debut in a three-year-old hurdle at Down Royal and successfully made most of the running. Briefly headed before the second-last, she battled back to regain the lead and score by four lengths. A step up in grade should be on the cards soon. Relieved Of Duties Fences have been the making of this horse and he’s progressing nicely over the larger obstacles. He ran a stormer to finish second in a decent race at Cheltenham in October, but something looked amiss at Punchestown last weekend. Graded races might be a bit beyond him at the moment, but handicaps could be the way to go and after running well at Cheltenham previously, perhaps the Grand Annual could be on the agenda. Slade Steel A bit of a forgotten horse, those with good memories will recall that he won the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham two seasons ago. Things didn’t go to plan over fences last season and connections decided to go back to the drawing board. De Bromhead reported that his schooling has been much sharper now, after being a little slow and deliberate over fences last season. He failed to win over fences but has solid form and retaining his novice status for the current campaign could be a blessing in disguise. Spinningayarn Spinningayarn won a point-to-point at Ballyknock in good style back in March 2024 and showed a good attitude to get off the mark in a bumper at Navan in January. Elliott likes this horse a lot and he’s expected to flourish in the staying novice hurdle division. You can put a line through his very below-par display at Naas in February as that was simply too bad to be true and Elliott thinks he wasn’t right that day. He should be winning races over hurdles this season and could well be one for the notebook.
