Magic Daze

Magic Daze only finished third in the two-and-a-quarter-mile beginners’ chase at Galway on Tuesday, but there was still plenty to take from the performance. She is a free-going sort, and she faced competition for the early lead from Julies Stowaway, but she was quickly into the lead on her own, and she stretched her rivals out, jumping well for a debutante. Gabynako closed on her on the run to the final two fences in the dip, and he went on from her over the last. She stuck to her task well though, she challenged Gavin Cromwell’s horse as they raced around the home turn and started up the hill, but she tired from that point as her early exertions told, as Noble Yeats went past her and got up to beat Gabynako too.

Henry de Bromhead’s mare was beaten too on her debut last season, her first run under Rules, in a maiden hurdle at Leopardstown when, again, she was keen early on and did well to keep on as well as she did to finish third. She was impressive then in winning her maiden hurdle at Clonmel on her second run, when she made all the running. She didn’t run again after that until she ran in the Grade 1 mares’ novices’ hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, when she ran a massive race to finish second behind her stable companion Telmesomethinggirl, again, after racing keenly early on. The two-and-a-quarter-mile trip on Tuesday on the soft ground, and up Galway’s hill, probably wasn’t ideal for her, on her seasonal debut. She could be seen to better effect back over two miles and back on a track that suits prominent racers. And she will be of interest if and when she goes back to Cheltenham, where she put up the best performance of her life last March.
Galway, 5^th October 2021