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Heading north again tomorrow for round 2 of Dundalk 2018. It was great to get off to a good start with Indian Tom, Alcatraz was irritating to say the least. He’ll have other days hopefully. Two lads running tomorrow couldn’t be more different. One is awkward as bedamned and seems to have thrived since he came to us. The other lad is very straightforward and his best form is from before we got him. Beach Bar first. He had a charmed passage the last day under a brilliant ride. This is very tough and realistically, at the weights, he is battling with the remaining 3. He seems very well and with the field size and prize money it’s no harm having a go. Aegeus is next and he has been gelded since his last run. As a full horse he was in no way coltish but was obsessed with his gut and nothing impacted him, including his exercise. It had little or no effect on him. He’s still lackadaisical, going through his routine like a metronome. It’s his first go in this grade so it’ll be interesting to see how he runs. They’re talking about bringing back the start time for Dundalk to allow stable staff to get on the road home earlier. I hope they don’t, as it stands we get all our morning jobs completed before setting off and any changes would put further pressure on us raceday morning. There was mention also again of a Tipp all weather track. The absolute priority should be replacing the existing surface in Dundalk and then talk about putting on more racing there. I’m in no way convinced we need more low grade racing. There’s tons of horses in that bracket. They’re not being catered for admittedly but they are either competitive and can protect themselves from the balloting system or they can’t. Reducing prize money and increasing the opportunities is not the way forward. Time to pull the plug maybe…..