Tramore Festival Begins: Must-Follow Owner, Trainer, and Jockey on Day 1 One of the highlights of the season at Tramore, the four-day August Festival kicks off on Thursday and Day 1’s card is a thoroughly competitive one. We have seven races to look forward to on Thursday and the highlight is the €20,000 Bluegrass Horse Feeds Handicap Hurdle at 6.35. Picking out winners is going to be a tough task here, but we’ve selected an owner, trainer and jockey to follow. This includes Darragh O’Keefe, who has a solid book of rides, and his boss Henry de Bromhead has three intriguing runners. Owner: P Haughey, P M Haughey & John Ball There aren’t any owners with more than one runner so we’ve selected the owners of potentially the most likely winner on the card. P Haughey, P M Haughey and John Ball own the Henry de Bromhead-trained Ma Belle Etoile, who should be hard to beat. She was an easy winner of a Cork novice hurdle in May and comfortably dispatched an in-form rival by 12 lengths. Making all the running that day, the result never looked in doubt, despite the fact that she was a little too keen in the early stages of the race. Things didn’t quite go to plan on chasing debut over course and distance on her penultimate start but she did scope badly after the race. It was a much better performance at Wexford next time out and a similar performance should be enough. Trainer: Henry de Bromhead One of Ireland’s top trainers, he runs Ma Belle Etoile in the opening novice chase and she has scope for further progress over the larger obstacles. She won nicely last time out and it’ll be a surprise if the six-year-old fails to follow up. Pidyone could probably do with some help from the handicapper, but she should still be competitive in the feature race on the card. She has won two of her 17 starts over hurdles and is a previous course and distance scorer. His final representative at Tramore on Thursday is Time In A Bottle, who placed in three of her four bumpers and was runner-up over hurdles at Kilbeggan last month. There should be more to come in this sphere and her jockey takes 7lb off. Jockey: Darragh O’Keefe Darragh O’Keefe has taken over as De Bromhead’s main jockey after Rachael Blackmore’s retirement and he has five rides at Tramore. Ma Belle Etoile is one of them and her strong claims have been discussed previously. Unknown God makes his debut under rules in the two-mile maiden hurdle and it’s hard to know what to expect, after one disappointing effort in an Irish point. Pidoyne is a much more likely candidate, as she won off a 6lb lower mark at Roscommon last summer. Warriors Wood has won two of his four starts over hurdles so far and showed a good attitude to grind out victory at Ballinrobe last month. The trip shouldn’t be a problem, as the five-year-old finished third over further at Downpatrick in June. Positive Mindset probably has a bit to find her best effort over hurdles came here in May and she’s still lightly raced in handicap company.
