Paul Townend returns to festival action for the Fairyhouse Easter dates which include a pair of Grade One features on Sunday.
Townend has sat out the last two weeks, including last weekend’s Scottish National at Ayr, since finishing runner-up on I Am Maximus in the Aintree Grand National.
The 34-year-old resumes on 100 winners for the current Irish season and is assured of a seventh jockeys’ championship when the campaign ends at Punchestown in a fortnight.
Kalix Delabarriere could prove a blot on Saturday’s €100,000 Rybo Handicap Hurdle, off a mark of 125, while Fishery Lane is a significant pick by the champion jockey-elect in the preceding contest.
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Champ Kiely is Townend’s choice in Sunday’s WillowWarm Gold Cup and he has opted for Aurora Vega in the other top-flight contest, a fascinating Irish Stallion Farms Honeysuckle Novice Hurdle.
Willie Mullins saddles half of the 16-strong field for a contest won by Honeysuckle herself in 2019.
Just how dangerous a Mullins team of that scale can be was underlined at Cheltenham when he saddled 11 for the Triumph Hurdle and won with the 100/1 jumping newcomer Poniros.
Nevertheless, this shapes as a rare Grade One where the sport’s dominant figure doesn’t dominate centre stage.
Instead, plenty will believe it to be about a couple of Cheltenham wrongs being righted.
The local hope is Sixandahalf, whose rider Keith Donoghue admits he still can’t quite figure out how he got beat on her at last month’s all-important festival.
Sixandahalf did look like she had the Ryanair Novices event wrapped up, travelling like a winner throughout, only to be nabbed in the final strides by Air Of Entitlement.
Only 24 hours later and the latter’s trainer, Henry De Bromhead, was left with a sense of what might have been too following The Big Westerner’s second in the Albert Bartlett.
She too travelled notably well throughout only to meet significant interference after the penultimate flight. By the time The Big Westerner got daylight the winner Jasmin De Vaux had flown.
Both she and Air Of Entitlement are part of a three-pronged De Bromhead raid on the race in which Gavin Cromwell relies solely on Sixandahalf.
With The Big Westerner dropping in trip from Cheltenham, both Sixandahalf and Air Of Entitlement step up in distance.
Lurking behind all of them is the Mullins squad which includes two French recruits making their debuts for the champion trainer.
Townend’s decision to stick with Aurora Vega, out of the money behind Air Of Entitlement last time, suggests Cheltenham form may be the way to go. With soft ground likely, a clear route for The Big Westerner this time could prove decisive.
Champ Kiely was a Grade One winner over hurdles before successfully beginning his career over fences at Fairyhouse on New Year’s Day.
Subsequently fourth to Ballyburn at the Dublin Racing Festival, Champ Kiely skipped Cheltenham and made light of a drop back to two miles to land the Flyingbolt at Navan last month.
The 2½ mile test, in a race still referred to by some as the Powers, shapes as ideal for a horse that could follow in the hoofprints of previous winners such as Galopin Des Champs (2022) and Al Boum Photo (2018).
Easter Sunday’s Fairyhouse action has a third six-figure prize with the Tattersalls Sales Bumper, won last year by Kopek Des Bordes. Patrick Mullins has opted for the newcomer Sunshineway from his father’s handful of options.
Saturday’s six-figure pot at Fairyhouse includes the high-class English mare Joyeuse who landed Newbury’s William Hill Hurdle before finishing out of the money behind Lossiemouth at Cheltenham. Her opposition includes the Cheltenham festival winner Jazzy Matty, who returns to flights off an eye-catching handicap mark.
Testing ground conditions will suit Ryehill, who before Cheltenham won impressively by a dozen lengths at Naas and looks the one to beat in the Hunters Chase.
Cork’s triple Easter dates kick off with a flat card on Saturday where Johnny Murtagh’s Mocking can progress for a step up in trip following a slightly unlucky run behind Serious Contender at Leopardstown.
Joseph O’Brien holds a strong hand in the 10-furlong conditions event, while his Omni Man, third to Mississippi River in a decent contest at Navan last time, should be a big player in the opening mile maiden.
In other flat news, Qatar Racing have taken away their horses from top English trainer Andrew Balding. It brings to an end a long-standing relationship highlighted by Balding saddling the 2000 Guineas winner Kameko in 2020. Among the horses removed is last season’s Grade One winner New Century.
Qatar Racing’s main figure Sheikh Fahad has had horses with Balding since 2011 and retains jockey Oisin Murphy who rides the majority of the Kingsclere trainer’s runners.
