YORKHILL TO FLY IN RYANAIR
YORKHILL (4.00) can bring Irish champion trainer Willie Mullins `100,000 closer to Gordon Elliott in the chase for the trainers’ title by winning the Ryanair Gold Cup at Fairyhouse tomorrow.
The seven-year-old won the JLT Novices’ Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in great style, dampening concerns over his jumping ability and will be very hard to beat.
Of the other six runners, Anibale Fly, trained by Tony Martin and Elliott’s Ball D’Arc will give Yorkhill most to do in this Grade One event.
Elliott currently leads Mullins by `362,230, but with more than `1.39m in prize money available in 23 races during the three-day Fairyhouse festival, the battle between the top two could swing dramatically.
LET’S DANCE (2.50) is another hotpot who should add to the Mullins coffers in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Mares Novice Hurdle Championship Final.
The five-year-old won the Trull House Stud Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham impressively and looks the banker of the afternoon.
Stablemate Augusta Kate, who finished a distant sixth to Penhill in the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle, will be better suited to this shorter trip and can make it a 1-2 for the stable.
Elliott may bounce back in the last race of the day, the `100,000 Tattersalls Ireland Sales Bumper, with DORYDALIS (5.10), who won a Ballinaboola point by half a length last time out. Mullins runs unraced Special Ted, owned by Supreme Racing.
ZIG ZAG (2.20) is the fancy in the two-mile Gleesons Butchers Novice Handicap Hurdle. Joseph O’Brien’s four-year-old ran a decent race to finish ninth out of 22 at Cheltenham in the Fred Winter Juvenile Hurdle when he raced with a tongue-tie.
He was only beaten 13 lengths behind Flying Tiger that day and he has been thereabouts in races prior to that.
The four-year-old could sneak into the money at a big price in a wide-open 22-runner event.