Provided the weather decides to play ball, we look set for a superb weekend’s sport with the Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown spearheading the action with eight Grade 1 events.
Sandown plays host to the Grade 1 Scilly Isles Novices’ Chase, it is Musselburgh’s biggest two days in their jumping calendar with their trials meeting, while the Grade 2 Towton Novices’ Chase is the centrepiece to Wetherby’s card on Saturday assuming the A1 track has dried and thawed out following a deluge of snow and rain in recent weeks.
The Grade 2 bumpers at Leopardstown have had quite a bearing on the Festival bumper at Cheltenham in recent years. The newly retired Relegate won the mares’ version in 2018 at 16/1 under Katie Walsh before repeating the dose at even bigger odds nearly six weeks later at the home of jumping racing.
Twelve months on, Envoi Allen did likewise as he saw off his errant stablemate Abacadabras, who crashed through the rails when mounting his challenge. Gordon Elliott’s brilliant seven year old went on to record the first of his five Grade 1 wins at Cheltenham the following month.
It would therefore be no surprise if either of this weekend’s bumpers unearthed a future Festival winner.
The gelding’s version, which is the finale on Saturday’s card, is made up of 16 previous winners, a handful of which are unbeaten and they include three each from the Elliott and Mullins’ barns. None of those trained by the former have tasted defeat yet, including the red hot ante-post Festival favourite Sir Gerhard, who will bid to provide Cheveley Park Stud with their third consecutive win in the Weatherbys-backed Grade 1 contest in March.