NAP of the Day: Real Whacker can land Kerry National

There is plenty of action in store on Wednesday, with five meetings across the UK and Ireland, including the latest offering from the Listowel Harvest Festival where the Guinness Kerry National is the feature race.

There is a prize of €120,000 to be landed for winning connections and a field of 18 are set to contest the Grade 3 handicap over just shy of three-miles. British raiders are a rarity and it is left to Patrick Neville as he saddles the only UK-based runner now in The Real Whacker. Read on for my NAP of the Day for Wednesday.

Today's Horse Races

Patrick Neville is a trainer based at Coverham in North Yorkshire, but the Harvest Festival at Listowel will be nothing new to him.

Neville was born and raised in nearby Askeaton in Co Limerick and had his licence in Ireland before opting to relocate to the north of England, citing heightened travel costs for bringing horses around Ireland as an incentive as he sought more opportunities in Britain.

It has paid off, with Neville now a Grade 1-winning trainer via THE REAL WHACKER, who beat no less than Gerri Colombe into second when landing the three-mile Brown Advisory Novices' Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in March 2023.

Last season didn't perhaps go to plan. The Real Whacker was pulled up at Cheltenham in November on his comeback over shorter, before finishing fourth in the King George at Kempton on Boxing Day.

He went down fighting in the Grade 2 Cotswold Chase on Festival Trials Day back at Cheltenham in January, this time over 3m1½f, before being pulled up in the white heat of the Gold Cup back there in March.

On his final start, things surely caught up with him as he folded tamely from the front in the Oaksey Chase at Sandown.

He is back from his summer break now and contests this race off an acceptable mark of 155 in a first-time tongue-tie.

This will be his first time in a handicap over fences at this sort of trip and it should suit him well, as his best form comes over three miles and slightly more.

Any easing of the ground will suit, though good-to-yielding should be just fine for the still lightly-raced eight-year-old on this, his ninth start over fences.

Regular rider Sam Twiston-Davies has made the trip to Listowel which has to be a major positive and he could have a partner under him with enough class to beat off this field and give Limerick native Neville another day to remember with his stable star.

This is an Extra Place Race so Betfred will be paying 5 Places (1/5 Odds) instead of 4.

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