Punchestown Festival starts today

The Punchestown Festival starts today and continues through Saturday with a feast of top class jumps racing. This is easily the best Irish N.H. meeting of the year and is comparable in many ways to Cheltenham, although the two racecourses are totally different. However many of today´s runners were last seen in action at the Cheltenham Festival and this is especially true of the 3 Grade One races.

In Irish jumps racing one always starts with Willie Mullins and he has multiple entries in all the main events. He runs 3 in the Champion Novice Hurdle at 17.20 CET - Faugheen (Ruby Walsh), Valseur Lido (Paul Townend) and Wicklow Brave (David Casey) and obviously Ruby is on the favourite, who is unbeaten and was especially impressive when winning at Cheltenham. He won the bumper at this meeting last year, but all his hurdles starts have been over much longer distances than today´s 2 miles, which does cast a slight doubt, but even so, we shall be surprised if he is beaten. Most of the others ran in the Supreme over this trip at Cheltenham with Sgt. Reckless (Mick Channon/ Tony McCoy) doing best in fourth. Champion Hurdle winner Jezki took this race last year and certainly Faugheen looks the one most likely to follow in his hoofprints.

Today´s best race is the Champion Chase, also over 2 miles, at 18.30, in which Mullins saddles Turban (Townend) and Twinlight (Walsh), but smart thoigh they are, we shall look elsewhere for the winner. Somersby (Channon/ McCoy) and Module (Tom George/ Barry Geraghty) were separated by a neck when second and third to Sire De Grugy in the big Cheltenham race, with Sizing Europe (Henry de Bromhead/ Andrew Lynch) 4th, while Baily Green (Mouse Moris/ Casey) was still well there when he fell 4 out, while Hidden Cyclone (Shark Hanlon/ Andrew McNamara) was runner-up in the Ryanair and Savello (Tony Martin/ Davy Russell) won the Grand Annual. Any of these could win, but regular readers will know that we like the oldtimers and we think that 12yo Sizing Europe has an excellent each-way chance. This track suits him much better than Cheltenham and he has a great record here, winning this in 2012 and running up to Sprinter Sacre, the best two-miler for many years, last year.

The final Grade One today is the Champion Novice Chase over an extended 3 miles at 19.40 and this also looks very open, with almost all of the 7 runners in with a chance. Mullins has 3 of them, with Townend on Ballycasey, Paul Carberry on Mozoltov and Ruby on the likely favourite Djakadam; as a 5yo this one receives weight all round, and he was going well when he fell at Cheltenham. What worries us again is the distance, as this is much further than he has ever been before. So we shall take a chance on German-bred Don Cossack (Gordon Elliott/ Geraghty), who also fell at Cheltenham but is otherwise very consistent and stays this trip well enough.

Our other fancy here is Diplomat, trained by our old friend Dermot Weld and ridden by Robbie Power, in the valuable handicap hurdle at 17.55. Obviously this is a very open race with 18 runners, but the stable is in fantastic form.

Betting forecast:
1. Race: Commanchewardance - Be Positive - Kanesh
2. Race: Sgt Reckless - Valseur Lido - Western Boy
3. Race: Lucky Bridle - Gallant Tipp - City Slicker
4. Race: Hidden Cyclone - Somersby - Module
5. Race: Native Display - Just Get Cracking - Very Much So
6. Race: Morning Assembly - Djakadam - Ballycasey
7. Race: Disputed - Ange D`or Javilex - Alamein