Snow Fairy Fillies Stakes (Curragh) Preview & Betting Tips – Sunday 28th August 2016

The best card of the weekend comes over in Ireland on Sunday as the Curragh plays host to the Irish Cambridgeshire meeting. That competitive handicap is the feature event of the day but ample support is provided by three Group 3 contests. The fillies take to the track in the best of these, in a fascinating contest featuring runners to have previously taken part in the Oaks and a number of up and coming performers.

Race Analysis

Mick Channon’s Epsom Icon, Charlie Appleby’s Skiffle and We Are Ninety from the yard of Hugo Palmer look set to fly the flag for the English trainers this year. The lightly raced Skiffle may boast the strongest claims of this trio dropping down in class following a disappointing effort in the Oaks last time out. It may be that she didn’t enjoy the track that day but it seems more likely that she didn’t stay the 1m4f trip. With that being this case this step down in distance looks to be worth a shot and if she can return to something like the level of her victory in the Height of Fashion Stakes at Goodwood then she looks a live contender here at odds of 3/1 with Coral.

Aidan O’Brien has won this twice in the past four years which makes his sole entry, Somehow, worthy of close inspection. Having landed Chester’s Oaks trial on her second start of the season, this daughter of Fastnet Rock subsequently disappointed in being well beaten in both the English and Irish Oaks. A drop down to this level last time out a Cork resulted in a much better effort as she found only stablemate Best In The World too good.

The main question mark here concerns this step down to 1m1f as all bar her debut run at 7f have come over further. Whilst she has plenty of stamina in her pedigree through her dam Alexandrova, she doesn’t appear devoid of pace and should go well and is available at 11/4 with most bookies.

Betting Tips

Dermot Weld has a trio of promising sorts entered at this stage in Discipline, Rose De Pierre and Adool. All are nicely bred and won last time out and warrant plenty of respect. Of the three Adool seems the most likely to go to post and looks worth a bet here at around 4/1 with Tote. Having won her maiden at Fairyhouse in a canter she was plunged straight into Group 3 company for her second start.

She was beaten over four lengths into third that day but her effort can be upgraded somewhat having raced in rear and being forced to make her challenge wide in the straight. Dropped into Listed class last time out, she still looked a little green when hitting the front but stuck it out nicely for a cosy success. This one looks a Group winner in waiting to our eyes and looks the one to be on in a fascinating heat.