RACING:IT'S 10 years since Willie Mullins supplied the last Irish winner of the Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham but today's Punchestown feature could see the champion trainer supply a prime candidate to bridge that gap in Ut De Sivola.
A total of seven runners line up for the Visit Punchestown Juvenile Hurdle which is the Grade Three feature of this weekend’s home action.
Conceding weight all round will be the double winner One Cool Shabra who represents the best Graded race form among the four-year-old division so far this season having been placed behind His Excellency at Leopardstown and the ill-fated Sam Bass at Fairyhouse.
Also there is the Leopardstown maiden winner Chill and Dermot Weld’s Hisaabaat who improved from an underwhelming debut to chase home Sportsmaster at Naas last weekend.
But in terms of future festival potential this €27,500 heat looks to revolve around Ut De Sivola who already is as low as 8 to 1 joint-favourite with Baby Max in some ante-post lists for the Triumph.
That looks remarkably skinny for a horse that won a maiden at Clonmel but significantly Ut De Sivola was backed as if defeat was out of the question that day and he has clearly improved enormously since joining Mullins from France where he ran just once in a 12-furlong bumper.
Mullins knows what it takes to win a Triumph having scored with Scolardy in 2002 and while Ut De Sivola’s Cheltenham odds currently have more to do with reputation than solid form, that can all change this afternoon.
The preceding conditions hurdle contains a number of intriguing runners, not least of which is the Mouse Morris-trained Gold Cup outsider China Rock.
This horse ran a blinder in last season’s blue riband at Cheltenham before being pulled up with a leg problem that has been dealt with by the same stem-cell treatment that his former stablemate War Of Attrition received.
War Of Attrition came back from that to run some fine races and China Rock returns to action in a two-and-a-half-mile conditions hurdle that also sees “Shark” Hanlon run his talented performer Western Leader.
This one came back from 20 months on the sidelines with a meritorious run behind Mikael D’Haguenet at this course on New Year’s Eve. The bounce-back factor could be an issue but if it isn’t, Western Leader could cope with another returning horse in Hugo De Vindecy and the decent novice Ipsos Du Berlais.
The latest Willie Mullins bumper performer to appear will be Robin Angevin but this horse has proved expensive to follow and a better option may be The Mighty Milan who ran a decent third to Thomas Edison at Leopardstown.
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