DOUBLE HANDFUL

THE Dublin Horseracing Festival has everything any proper festival goer needs — top quality racing, a bountiful supply of booze and the ability to place bets.

That’s pretty much the end of the list.

I’ll take a luxury hotel over a tent any day, and I’ll never be desperate enough to use one of those dreadful portable toilets again. Not since that traumatic day when someone pushed over the one I was in at Wincanton.

My only advice on the booze side of the Dublin Festival is not to start drinking too early.

I’m what you’d call a ‘social drinker,’ which means if someone says they’ll have a drink, I say, ‘So shall I’.

There’s not one but FOUR Grade One races at Leopardstown today but the one I’m looking forward to the most is the Dublin Chase.

I’m fascinated to see if the Willie Mullins-trained Chacun Pour Soi will gain revenge over Henry de Bromhead’s A Plus Tard. The pair met over the course and distance just a month ago with A Plus Tard running out a comfortable winner by almost four lengths.

The literal translation of A Plus Tard is ‘see you later,’ which is what I think you’d be doing with your money if you back him today.

I’m hearing the Mullins camp are ultra confident of reversing the form given the run last month was his seasonal reappearance and he went into it a little undercooked. Let’s not forget we’re talking about a horse who made mincemeat of Defi Du Seuil and Duc Des Genievres last year in the Ryanair Novice Chase at Punchestown. That’s a JLT winner and the winner of an Arkle he left trailing in his wake! Mullins was bullish in his praise for Chacun Pour Soi in the aftermath to that race, and it was clear that he thought he had a superstar on his hands.

I think he still does, despite that below-par run last time

You can’t rule out Min or Cilaos Emery but for me a fit Chacun Pour Soi beats them all.

“Guessing has never been widely acclaimed as a good gambling strategy“- Dr. G