With just over a fortnight to the Cheltenham Festival there is perhaps an inevitable sense of “before the lord mayor’s show” about this weekend’s action, although Emmet Mullins already has a lucrative cross-channel pot in his sights at Kempton on Saturday.
The Co Carlow trainer sets a puzzle of his own too in the £150,000 (€172,000) Ladbrokes Trophy Handicap Chase by pitching in both Chance Another One and Rising Dust.
Donagh Meyler is the regular rider of both horses and has opted for Chance Another One, a course and distance winner in November. That Mullins has snapped up British champion jockey Sean Bowen for Rising Dust will be a tip for many.
Bowen reached 200 winners for the season in Britain on Friday when successful on Harbour Island at Ffos Las. The Welshman is just the fifth jockey to manage the feat and he has AP McCoy’s record tally of 289 winners in a campaign in his sights.
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Rising Dust’s claims are underlined by just one defeat in his last six starts as well as plentiful evidence that the comparatively decent ground conditions Kempton is renowned for will be right up his street.
It will be good for Chance Another One as well, as will the step back up to three miles. Following his Kempton victory, he twice dropped back to the minimum trip including at Leopardstown over Christmas when well beaten behind Addragoole. He is 7lbs higher for his last success but still looks on a competitive mark.
Last year’s winner Katate Dori is 11lbs higher than when narrowly scoring in 2025 while another big home hope, Hoe Joly Smoke, has first-time cheekpieces to help him. His trainer Dan Skelton also saddles Boombawn.
“I’ve had this race in mind all season for Hoe Joly Smoke, to be honest. Three miles on this track is absolutely ideal for him. We’ve put a pair of cheekpieces on him as well.
“Obviously, this one is worth a lot of money and we felt it was worth laying him out for it. We’ve done that and his work has been good. The ground should be ideal. I’m really positive about the whole thing,” Skelton told the big-race sponsors.
No Irish-trained horse has won the race under its various sponsorship guises, although its proximity to the biggest week of the racing year has rarely made it an obvious option.
This meeting has been on Emmet Mullins’s radar before, however, including when landing the Dovecote Hurdle on this card five years ago. A week later he memorably landed the Morebattle Hurdle at Kelso with The Shunter, who went on to strike at Cheltenham, advertising his trainer’s ability to successfully deviate from the normally cautious approach at this time of year.
Mullins will hope Its On The Line can finally get a Cheltenham Festival success in the Hunters Chase under his belt next month. The JP McManus-owned stalwart has finished runner-up in the race for the last three years, including to Wonderwall last season. He is set to be joined on the festival ferry by other hopefuls such as McLaurey and the DRF winner Backmersackme.
The Grand National-winning trainer has two other runners this weekend, both at Naas on Sunday. Melbourne Shamrock is a Cheltenham entrant that goes in Pertemps Hurdle qualifier and Mullins unveils an interesting bumper newcomer in It’s Good To Talk.
He is a half brother to the 2023 bumper champion A Dream To Share and the homebred races in the colours of Claire Gleeson, wife of RTÉ pundit Brian Gleeson. Their son John takes the reins in a race with a notable record of throwing up top-class talent.
This year’s Grade One-winning hurdler I’ll Sort That emerged on top a year ago while the Gold Cup runner-up Gerri Colombe scored in 2021. No less than the subsequent Ascot Gold Cup hero Rite Of Passage landed the spoils in 2009. Gordon Elliott has an outstanding record in it and the fact that Low Kick goes here rather than Grangeclare Park might be significant.
Willie Mullins’s latest French recruit Majolique is put straight into Listed company in a Juvenile Hurdle on Sunday despite an original entry in an earlier maiden. She won a 10-furlong maiden on the flat at Longchamp last May and sports the Honeysuckle colours of owner Kenny Alexander.
Sunday’s Grade Three action is the William Hill Chase where the veteran Captain Guinness will try to repeat his 2022 victory in the race. The former two-mile title holder hasn’t pulled up any trees in two starts this season but a return to his best would see him a major player again.
Blood Destiny was pulled up on his last start, with the rider reporting him to have made a noise, which is hardly encouraging. In the circumstances, and despite the task he faces on official figures, the safest option might be the topweight Touch Me Not.
