TWO WIDE OPEN SPRING DERBY SEMI FINALS AT CURRAHEEN PARK

Barry Drake

The semi-finals of the €7,500 to the winner A2 Spring Derby take centre stage at Curraheen Park tonight.

In truth, both heats look like wide events and it promises to be another great night of racing at the Cork track.

Katsumoto is drawn for a big run in the opening semi-final and the Gerry Holian-trained runner should deliver another big performance. A 28.76 winner last week, the selection has stunning early speed and from the rails pitch, he has strong claims of making all the running. Faypoint Maureen, trained by Graham Holland for Patricia Flanagan, is the obvious danger. She did get the better of the selection two runs ago and the pacey performer has leading claims, however, she can't afford any mistakes early on as there's plenty of early pace in the line-up. 

The second heat is another wide-open contest, with a narrow vote going to Batt O'Shea's Labana King. All about early speed, he returned to winning ways last time, when making all to win, in 28.97. Drawn well, in trap number two, another front-running winning performance is on the cards. 

Coosey Hall, trained by James Kelleher for owners the Castlegrounds Syndicate, set the standard last week, clocking 28.65, but he's drawn on the outside of the track which isn't ideal. He could still manage to turn handy around the opening corners and if that's the case, he could well play a leading part. 

Clonmore Alice can return to winning ways in race seven. In the ownership of Breda and Cian Moloney, the classy performer has plenty of top-class form in the book and she has run well without winning in a couple of hot contests over the last couple of weeks. This is a drop in class and she has buckets of early speed. If getting it right early on, she should make every yard of the running. 

Butterbridge Roy can make it four wins on the trot in the closing race. Trained by Kieran Lynch for Mark O'Shea, the in-form tracker has delivered a couple of really impressive displays in recent weeks. On that form, he's very much the one to beat in this. The likes of the Graham Holland-trained Garfiney Blake and the Pat Kiely-trained Da Dapper Flynn should also be in the mix.