NAP of the Day: O’Brien to take Gowran feature again

There's lots of racing action on Monday as we move into the month of June, with six meetings across Britain and Ireland to begin the week. They come from Lingfield, Newbury, Windsor and Wolverhampton (AW) in Britain, while it is a Bank Holiday in Ireland and they boast action on the level at Gowran Park and over jumps from Listowel.

The eight-race Gowran Park card runs from 13:29 through until 17:29 on Monday and is headlined by the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Gowran Classic (15:44) where trainer Joseph O'Brien is fancied to land successive renewals.

Joseph O'Brien's Owning Hill yard is around a 40-minute drive away from Gowran Park and, as such, the trainer tends to have plenty of runners at the Co Kilkenny venue.

He's sent out 44 winners at this track in the last five seasons and boasts a solid strike-rate of just under 14 per-cent from more than 300 runners.

One of those winners was Green Triangle in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Gowran Classic last year and O'Brien is targeting a repeat success in the Smullen Series race now with five runners aimed at a contest boasting €200k in the prize pot.

O'Brien has HARDY WARRIOR (Declan McDonogh), Perisher (Joey Sheridan), Summer Is Tomorrow (Ronan Whelan), Sayatoma (Shane Foley) and Flawless Fusion (Chris Hayes) all in contention in a 17-strong field bidding to land the top prize of €110k.

The 107-rated Hardy Warrior looks the one to be with on these terms despite carrying 9st 8lb and conceding weight all round to his 16 rivals.

He's long way clear on ratings and comes here with much the best form in the book. The Pinatubo colt won a Leopardstown maiden (1m, yielding) on second start last summer and was second over the same C&D in the Group 2 KPMG Champions Juvenile Stakes in September.

His connections opted for a pop in elite company next and he was far from disgraced when fourth in the Criterium International at Saint-Cloud on soft going in October.

This season began with a win at Naas (1m, soft) in March and he has since run well when placed in a Group 3 in France upped to this sort of trip for the first time.

He saw out that trip fairly well and, while this may be the fastest surface he has race on, he has scope for better at this distance and should have too much class for this field to pick up the biggest payday of his career so far.

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