Smiling Eliza continued her busy schedule with another 2m hurdle this time at Thurles. Having struggled in very competitive company recently, this was an opportunity to bounce back and cheek pieces were tried for the first time. In the betting, she was backed in from 20's to start at 7's and was well fancied for at least a place. Mark "Fish"Enright was doing the steering and right from the start the tactics seemed different from the last time he took the ride at Leopardstown on Stephens Day when she was out the back and couldn't make any headway.
This time she led them out to the third and that's where the drama started. One of the favourites, Like An Open Book, fell and brought down Lareena in a bad looking collision. Rachael Blackmore was onboard the first faller and having already suffered a fall in the previous race, ended up needing treatment after this one. Eliza was well ahead of this but started to fall back to about 4th and I wondered if she was paying for making the early running. There was another faller 5 out and then Eliza propelled herself into the lead with a fine jump at the third last taking advantage when the leader fell. There was still a long way to go as they hadn't even reached the home bend. She was joined at the second last by Ask Nile but it was The King Of Brega and Daniel Holden on the outside who looked the biggest threat while Polished Steel was looking to come up the inside. Fish was hard at work on her as they approached the last, Daniel Holdens mount took the lead from Ask Nile as Robbie Power on Polished Steel continued to look for room down Eliza's inside but he got too close and caught the spur of a cross rail ending his challenge. Eliza finished 3rd behind The King Of Brega who went on to win from Ask Nile. The drama wasn't finished though as a stewards enquiry was called over the rail incident and the decision demoted Eliza to 4th, promoting Polished Steel to 3rd.
Watching the race, I didn't feel like anything untoward had gone on between Eliza and Polished Steel, just another incident in an incident packed race. I was very surprised when I saw the result. Also I'm not sure why they have those cross rails at Thurles, why don't they just join them up together as a standard rail? There's probably a reason they're sitting like that but I don't know what it is.
It was a much better performance from Eliza, much more like her summer form but instead of more talk about Cheltenham afterwards the latest news is that she will be put in foal which was another surprise. I don't think this means she'll be ruled out of any racing straight away and could still potentially go to the festival whether the covering is successful or not. A bigger concern is that she doesn't look like she has the rating to get in. She does have another entry for Leopardstown in a couple of weeks and you wouldn't rule her out of going there either.
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