Agony For O’Grady As Tranquil Sea Misses Ryanair

Irish trainer Eddie O’Grady was understandably “gutted” after his stable star Tranquil Sea scoped badly over the weekend and will miss the Grade 1 Ryanair Chase at next week’s Cheltenham Festival, a race for which he had been amongst the market principals, writes Elliot Slater.

Although the nine-year-old worked well both on Wednesday and at the weekend, he scoped poorly on both occasions so O’Grady has been forced to accept the advice of his vet and Irish horse racing tips by placing the gelding on a short course of antibiotics which rule out the possibility of him taking his chance once again at the Cheltenham Festival to try and improve on his sixth place in the race 12 months ago.

So far this term the son of Sea Raven has been in fine form, winning on his seasonal return in the Grade 2 Clonmel Oil Chase in November (beating Let Yourself Go by two-lengths), then following up a month later at Fairyhouse in the Grade 1 John Durkan Memorial Chase in which he gamely gave 5lbs and a three-quarters-of-a-length beating to the smart J’Y Vole. Since Fairyhouse, Tranquil Sea’s training has been solely geared around arriving fresh and well at Cheltenham and until a couple of days ago everything had appeared to be going to plan.

Recent market support from horse racing Ireland and UK had seen O’Grady’s charge backed down to as short as 5/1 second favourite with some firms, but now all concerned with the horse will have to wait until Aintree next month and then possibly Punchestown, to see their pride and joy put through his paces.

Tranquil Sea’s absence from the big race has resulted in a series of wholesale changes to the ante-post market for the Ryanair Chase, with favourite Poquelin now cut to 5/2, Kalahari King clipped to 9/2, (Somersby – a doubtful runner, is also a 9/2 shot), Alberta’s Run 7/1, J’Y Vole (8/1), and they now go 12/1 bar.