Dundalk Friday Tips: Dances With Stars to record second course win

Where young jockeys are concerned, it often pays to identify their talents early, that way you'll be making sure you get full value about their mounts before the rest of the betting public cottons on.

One such jockey that's caught my eye in the last couple of weeks is Cian Horgan, who has had only a handful of mounts but has already ridden a couple of winners and looks a snip for his 10lb claim currently.

Horgan was seen to good effect when winning a handicap on Dare To Flare at this track last week and has fair claims of following up on that horse in in Friday's second race, though it's his mount in the first at 15:55 that catches my eye.

Primo Uomo is well into the veteran stage now at ten years of age, though he still showed plenty of enthusiasm when fourth on his most recent outing in the summer and has already shown an affinity for Dundalk's all-weather track.

He's a horse who also has a good record fresh, indeed his last win came at this course in January of last year when he was returning from a similar break to this, and conditions looks ideal for him to run a very big race.

With a plum draw in stall 1, and his young jockey taking off that valuable 10 lb, I can see Primo Uomo defying his age and striking to record an eighth career success.

My other bet on Friday's card comes in that aforementioned second race at 16:30, where I'm opposing Dare To Flair, for all that he's likely to take plenty of beating.

In fact, It's Cian's brother Hugh (a 7lb claimer) who I'll be siding with here, as he takes the mount on Joseph O'Brien's Dances With Stars.

This one is a well-bred son of Sea The Stars who took a while to get off the mark but finally got his win in maiden company over this C&D in November.

Hugh Horgan was on board that day and was seen to good effect in guiding this one to victory, Dance With Stars challenging a couple of furlongs out and coming home a length and a half to the good of Seattle Creek despite wandering a little.

The selection then ran okay to finish third on handicap debut in a much stronger race than this next time before possibly being a little stretched when stepped up to 2m on his most recent outing.

The drop back to this mile-and-a-half trip should prove ideal for Dances With Stars, and this sort of company is a good notch below those he faced when running that good race to finish third over C&D in December.

There wasn't much else of interest on a typically competitive Friday night Dundalk card and we're best off keeping our big punting guns under wraps for what should be a spectacular weekend of racing at the Dublin Racing Festival, both days of which I'll be previewing in this column.