Bourgeois can bring it home

ACAPELLA BOURGEOIS might be capable of defying joint top-weight of 11-10 in the €100,000 Ladbrokes Troytown Handicap Chase in Navan tomorrow.

The classy seven-yearold, whose two previous wins over fences have been achieved around Navan, is having his first run for Willie Mullins, having been transferred to the champion trainer following the retirement of Sandra Hughes.

And he’s attempting to emulate stable-companion Total Recall, in the same ownership (the Slaneyville Syndicate), which bolted-up in the Munster National on his first start after being transferred from Osborne Lodge to Closutton and is now a leading fancy for next week’s Ladbrokes Trophy (Hennessy) at Newbury.

Acapella Bourgeois, a Grade 2 winner over this course and distance when slamming subsequent Grade 1 winner Road To Respect by 32 lengths in the Ten Up in February, is a free-going and not entirely straight-forward individual.

But he has a big engine, relishes heavy ground and is, arguably, not badly treated here off a mark of 149.

He won his beginners over two and a half miles at Navan beating Arbre De Vie. And last spring, he then dropped away, having made the running in both the RSA Chase at Cheltenham (finished sixth behind Might Bite) and the Growisen at Punchestown (well-beaten behind Disko).

Acapella Bourgeois faces a tough task under 11-10. But he might be capable of outclassing his 21 rivals in a race which Mullins and Paul Townend won with Beroni in 2009.

Gordon Elliott, bidding for a fourth successive Troytown win, runs six, a challenge headed by Davy Russell’s mount

runner-up to A Genie In Abottle, after a lengthy absence, at Galway last time.

Jack Kennedy will be on board

sharpened by an eye-catching fourth to stable-companion Folsom Blue, over hurdles, in Clonmel recently while

although 5lb out of the handicap, has an each-way squeak.