RACING:DAVY RUSSELL will be crowned champion jockey for the first time in his career when Ireland's 2011-12 National Hunt season winds up today but it could be Russell's colleague, Andrew Lynch, who makes the biggest splash on the final session of this year's Punchestown Festival.
In some ways Lynch has been the jockey story of the entire campaign in Ireland, graduating to the top-flight of riders with a string of big-race victories that have proved his temperament for the big occasion. Sizing Europe’s Champion Chase success on Tuesday was an eighth Grade One victory of the season for Lynch who goes into this afternoon’s twin Grade One features with big chances.
The Triumph Hurdle runner-up, Hisaabaat, could again have to settle for second behind the English hope Balder Success in the AES Champion Four-Year-Old Hurdle but Rubi Light continues to look a major player for the rescheduled Tote Punchestown Gold Cup.
Winner of the John Durkan over the course last December, a slight doubt remains about Rob Hennessy’s star at the three-mile trip but even the strictest reading of a Lexus second to Synchronised reads pretty well after Cheltenham.
What is definitely in Rubi Light’s favour are the testing ground conditions, something that should also help the Hennessy winner Quel Esprit. The same can’t really be said for last year’s winner Follow The Plan or the English raider Quantitativeeasing, but that Hennessy form doesn’t appear the strongest and the race time that day was poor.
Cross-channel raiders have won the last two renewals of the four- year-old hurdle and top English-based trainer Alan King is doubly represented by Secret Edge and Balder Success. King’s Balder Success was fancied for the Triumph only to crash out at the fourth. He’d been unbeaten before that and crucially won on heavy ground on his debut.
Hisaabaat was second to Countrywide Flame in the Triumph, a frustrating result for connections considering he’d beaten that same horse in a Leopardstown Grade One before that.
The Guinness Handicap Chase has also been rescheduled from Wednesday and although JP McManus pitches five into the race, preference is still for Raptor at the two-and-a-half-mile trip.
Another €80,000 contest is the Setanta Handicap Hurdle where Willie Mullins runs five. Since the champion trainer has won the race twice in the last three years such a strong team looks significant, as is Ruby Walsh’s presence on the ex-French Marito.
Capellanus, though, could be an each-way option in this on the back of a decent warm-up effort on the flat at Leopardstown behind Royal Diamond.
Despite all the weather problems Punchestown experienced during the week, Navan has tomorrow all to itself although Unaccompanied will bring a National Hunt feel to the all-flat card in the finale.
The double Grade One winner hasn’t run since finishing well behind Hurricane Fly in January’s Irish Champion Hurdle but Dermot Weld expects her to improve significantly during a flat campaign this year.
Navan’s feature is the Listed Salsabil Stakes where Aidan O’Brien’s Oaks fancy Kissed returns to the scene of her debut triumph last October. Many of Ballydoyle’s runners have needed a run this term, however, and there was plenty to like about the way Cleofila won her own Curragh debut, beating Coral Wave despite running loose before the race.
