Johnny Ward's Irish Angle: Emperor can rule at Gowran Park

So big is Galway's place in the calendar, it is now the norm that the Sunday that precedes it is a blank day in Ireland.

The Galway Festival gets underway on Monday and I thought Zero Ten looked readymade for the Galway Hurdle, but connections obviously have different ideas, while the Plate looks a tricky puzzle to solve at this stage.

It is a low-key weekend in Ireland, with Gowran's attendance likely to be very small on Saturday, with hurling chat the order of the day in advance of Limerick's meeting with Kilkenny in the evening. Here are my three best bets at the County Kilkenny venue.

A couple of the leading form fancies here, Taggalo and Flamingo Bay, were pretty cheap purchases, both seemingly good enough to win a maiden.

The maiden in which Taggalo kicked off, behind impressive Leopardstown scorer Love, looked quite strong.

She travelled nicely and could take a lot of beating here.

Travelwise should be hard to beat here under a fixed penalty after winning easily at Naas, but his price and the 16-runner field render it appealing to bet each-way.

Emperor Bob is intriguing here. He is well-drawn and looked to be coming back to form when flashing home at Fairyhouse and is worth siding with.

Iron Blue lacked the tactical pace to maximise the advantage of a low draw over 7f at Fairyhouse last time.

She was still nearer last than first turning in and took a fair while to get going, staying at it well in the final furlong.

She has run four times at Gowran Park, her sole win coming there and finished in the money apart from one start.

Her trainer, Mark Fahey, is in excellent form as well.