REST OF TODAY'S MEETING:AN ESTIMATED €100 million is expected to be bet in Ireland over the next four days, but Dunguib's status as the Irish festival banker involves much more than selfish financial interest.

For one thing, his anticipated odds-on SP for the Spinal Research Supreme Novices Hurdle will discourage all but the very biggest players from investing enough to encourage a lifestyle-altering bet.

Yet there still won’t be more fervently muttered prayers for victory than with this lean, mean dream machine, who could yet prove himself the most outstanding young hurdling talent seen in a generation.

Already comparisons are being made with the 1978 Supreme winner Golden Cygnet, a James Dean-type talent that threatened to overwhelm everything else, only to not even make it to the end of that season.

Those comparisons will look ridiculous if Dunguib can’t win today. And if, as so many hope, he is to mature into a dominant A-List player, there will have to be more than a little stardust sprinkled over any victory.

That’s a tall order at the best of times, but especially so for an unbeaten hurdler who on his last start looked about as natural a “leaper” as Marlon Brando at his bulkiest.

The debate over whether that performance indicated vulnerability or was just an aberration has dominated much of the build-up to this festival, although Dunguib’s trainer, Philip Fenton, gave a convincing impression yesterday of a man without a care in the world.

“We’ve kept him away from the track on purpose because he can get a bit excitable. We’ve had him stabled at Jim Wilson’s and there hasn’t been the slightest problem. Everything has gone just fine,” he said.

Fenton rode Montelado a couple of times, the last horse (1992-93) to win the bumper and then 12 months later land the Supreme, and there is a confidence to the Tipperary trainer that no doubt is mainly attributable to an intimate knowledge of Dunguib’s raw talent.

Not for a very long time has a National Hunt horse come even close to showing the effortless cruising speed that Dunguib does. Dermot Weld was so impressed by it last year he believes he could train him for a Melbourne Cup.

Who knows what could be on Dunguib’s future? But for now, a win today will do just fine to be getting on with.

If the Supreme is set up to be a solo-show, then the following Arkle Trophy is for many a much-anticipated re-match between the 2008 Supreme winner Captain Cee Bee and the potentially imperious but curiously vulnerable Sizing Europe.

The Irish pair met at Christmas when the Captain crashed out at the last at Leopardstown when appearing to be going much the better. That was enough of a cue for bookmakers, who immediately cut Captain Cee Bee to favourite while sliding Sizing Europe out.

Henry De Bromhead, however, remains convinced his stable star was far from his best at Christmas where his usually fluent jumping looked altogether more cumbersome.

The suspicion remains that back trouble that robbed him of a likely Champion Hurdle success two years ago might have been playing a part in that.

That vulnerability is always a factor with Sizing Europe. But the fact remains, at his best he was an outstanding Irish Champion Hurdle victor, and if he combines that class with his best jumping today then Captain Cee Bee, Somersby and everything else will struggle to keep tabs on him.

Irish hopes will also be high in the cross country event, where the veteran Garde Champetre goes for three-in-a-row.

JP McManus’s trooper leads a team of five from the dominant Enda Bolger yard, and they are joined by the 2007 Grand National hero Silver Birch and Sizing Europe’s stable companion, Sizing Australia.

Six Irish-trained horses are among the 17 for the David Nicholson Mares Hurdle, but they include the two that appear to really matter: Quevega and Voler La Vedette.

Quevega was brilliant in this last year, but has been noticeably weak in ante-post markets for the past few days. Voler La Vedette boasts an outstanding piece of form in thrashing Go Native at Down Royal earlier in the season, but was far from impressive at her last try at two-and-a-half miles.

Colm Murphy’s horse may just be worth siding with, however, on this faster ground.

The Package could be a solution to a tricky William Hill Trophy Chase, where Bensalem’s jumping might let him down.

Brian O'Connor's Festival Selections

1.30 Dunguib

2.05 Sizing Europe (Nap)

2.40 The Package

3.20 Punjabi (Double)

4.00 Garde Champetre

4.40 Voler La Vedette