Gordon Elliott's Fourneux looks set to find above average improvement

Trainer: John Kiely
3^rd, 2m mares bumper, Clonmel, February 27

Losing meetings at Fairyhouse and Navan last week did not help in the quest for future winners, but even in a more active race week, the performance of this mare would have gone into most notebooks.

True, this was not the deepest bumper ever run, even by the standard of mares' bumpers, but she looks like one that should improve a good deal for the experience alone. Settled behind the leaders, she travelled well through the race, ran into a little bit of traffic in the straight, and when Derek O'Connor extricated her he did not knock her about on the heavy ground, and this is almost certainly something she will benefit from.