Irish trainer sends one horse on the 900-mile round trip to Carlisle on Sunday

Kerry-based trainer Tom Cooper is well able to train a good winner at a decent level, and it has to be hugely interesting that the Tralee-based handler will send one horse on the 900-mile round trip to Carlisle Racecourse on Sunday from his base in the south-west corner of Ireland. Let’s take a look at the horse in more detail below, but you can also find all of our free horse racing tips on the website too.

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2.07 Carlisle

Tom Cooper sends D Art D Art across the Irish Sea to take his chance in the 3m1f Pertemps Network Handicap Hurdle, which is a qualifier for the big race at Cheltenham in March.

This boy won his bumper at Gowran Park on his debut in January 2023, and he has gone on to win twice over hurdles, including when getting up right on the line to win a 2m4f handicap hurdle at Punchestown on his penultimate start in October.

He won that day from a mark of 119 and ran with plenty of credit when third of 23 at Navan last month, with no real winning chance given how much he had to do. Nonetheless, he plugged on well over the extended 2m6f trip and should relish this step up in distance.

The dilemma here is if he does win, connections won’t want to ruin his mark and by the same token they won’t want to drop a few pounds either, so there’s no doubt he will be out to win or at least go close to winning.

Connections wouldn’t travel all this way unless they had decent plans for this horse.

D Art D Art

Analysis

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