Nap of the Day: ‘He looks chucked in off this mark’

After landing the spoils on Wednesday, we return to Punchestown 24 hours later bidding for back-to-back Nap of the Day successes, with a handicapper who appears to have a lot in hand.

I appreciate that, on the face of it, he looks short enough for a 25-runner handicap at the Punchestown Festival of all places, but THE OTHER MOZZIE looks chucked in for Thursday's opener.

Gavin Cromwell's six-year-old has been plying his trade over fences for the past 12 months, but returns to hurdling off a mark of just 119 - a whopping 26 pounds lower than his chase rating (145).

The easy assumption is that he's simply a much better horse over the bigger obstacles, but I'm not convinced that's the case.

If it was, we'd have seen instant improvement from the son of Vadamos after changing tack in October last year, but we didn't.

He made the perfect start, winning a decent beginners' chase at Galway, but looked unlikely when departing at the final flight back at the Ballybrit venue later that month - and he beat just one rival home at Cheltenham in November, finishing 25 lengths off the pace.

Instead, I wonder if it was a mixture of general improvement - he's only six and lightly-enough raced - and the application of cheekpieces that brought about his subsequent upturn in form.

Sporting headgear for the first time, the half-brother to stablemate My Mate Mozzie absolutely bolted up by 11 lengths in a decent contest at Naas at the start of the year, before finishing a respectable seventh of 19 from a compromising position in the Jack Richards Novices' Limited Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in March.

He posted a career-best performance to win a Premier Handicap by four widening lengths at Ayr the other week, earning himself another hefty rise in the handicap as a result, and according to Cromwell comes here in "great form".

He's officially 26lbs well-in and while it doesn't always work out like that, I see no reason why The Other Mozzie can't translate his form back over the smaller obstacles and he's Nap material for me on Thursday.

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