Andrew McNamara hopes alliance with Tony Martin works in Kerry National
The Listowel Festival reaches its highlight with the Guinness Kerry National and Andrew McNamara has taken the view that if you can’t beat them, join them.
The jockey takes a rare ride for Tony Martin on last year's winner Northern Alliance as Ruby Walsh, who rode him last year, has switched to the Willie Mullins-trained Deutschland. McNamara got a good enough view of Northern Alliance 12 months ago as he was beaten just a length on Church Island. “He got the better of me last year so I’m teaming up with his this year,” he said.
Looking at what is a competitive line-up, McNamara was quick to mention Alfa Beat, trained by Charles Byrnes, but also that the horse has gone up by 17lbs in the ratings since he won at Galway last month. “Alfa Beat is a very interesting one –he’s off the back of five wins in a row - but he got a serious hike in the weights last time he won at Galway. So it’s hard to know if he’s going to be able to live up to that.”
Martin has to live with his tag as a trainer who is a master at delivering a horse ready for the big day but, as ever, the man himself is playing it quietly with Northern Alliance, who was a good fifth to Finger Onthe Pulse in the Galway Plate in July and then returned to Ballybrit for a tune-up on the Flat two weeks ago.
“I’m never confident going into a big race but I’m very happy with the horse.” Martin said. “He’s in very good form, his run in Galway two weeks ago over a mile-and-a-half and I think he’s as well as we could have him. The better the ground the better chance he’d have, he was very disappointing on heavy ground at Cheltenham last November – hopefully the rain will stay away.”
“He ran very well in the Galway Plate, he wasn’t beat too far, the race just wasn’t run to suit him. Tony McCoy [riding Finger Onthe Pulse] jumped off, went a nice clip for the first couple of fences and then slowed it up. We were a bit far back off a very slow-run race and it's very hard to come from a long way back off a slow-run race. Unfortunately we were a bit far back and got involved in traffic.
“This is usually a fast-run race so, hopefully, it should suit us. It's an open race and there are very few in there you can count out of it. I think every horse in it has a chance.”
Finger Onthe Pulse will be bidding to become the first horse since Life Of A Lord, in 1995, to follow up a Galway Plate victory in the Kerry National but he will do so without McCoy, who has elected to ride another JP McManus-owned runner in the race, Dancing Tornado.
The nine-year-old, trained by Michael Hourigan, a winner of two of his six starts over fences, ran with promise when third over hurdles at Killarney last month but did refuse at the last fence on his most recent start over fences in the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse in April.
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