EIGHT EXPECTATION
Mullins tools up to chase new record at Punchestown
WILLIE MULLINS saddles seven runners in his bid to land the John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase for a record eighth time tomorrow.
The Henry de Bromhead-trained Envoi Allen will be ridden by Rachael Blackmore, and is likely to go off favourite for the Grade One feature, for which ten runners will go to post.
The seven-year-old, who put a Cheltenham fall and an injury suffered at Punchestown behind him with an impressive return at Down Royal, is joined by Grand National-winning stablemate Minella Times, the mount of leading amateur Derek O’Connor.
Bryony Frost will have her first ride for Mullins when she gets the leg up on Franco De Port, whose high-class novice form includes a Grade One win at Leopardstown last Christmas.
Allaho, so brilliant when winning the Ryanair Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, appears the Mullins’ first string, with the champion trainer’s son Patrick coming in for the ride.
Bryan Cooper steered Asterion Forlonge to victory over the course and distance in April and is once again on board him.
‘Asterion Forlonge is a high-class horse who’s held in high regard in Closutton,’ Cooper said. ‘He didn’t have the rub of the green last year, but things finished off on a high note and he couldn’t have been any more impressive.’
Danny Mullins partners Kemboy, as he did to win last season’s Irish Gold Cup, and Janidil, Melon and last year’s John Durkan runner-up Tornado Flyer complete the Closutton squad. Allaho and Envoi Allen are both owned by Cheveley Park Stud.
A quality field is completed by Joseph O’Brien’s Fakir D’oudairies who, like Envoi Allen, has the benefit of a recent run, having made a successful reappearance in last month’s Clonmel Oil Chase.
The likely star of the show on the undercard is the Mullins-trained and Cheveley Park-owned Ferny Hollow, who makes his return – and fencing debut – in the beginners’ chase.
The 2020 Champion Bumper winner has been off the track since beating top-class novice Bob Olinger in a maiden hurdle at Gowran Park in November last year.
Cooper yesterday paid tribute to Latest Exhibition in the wake of the fatal injury suffered by Paul Nolan’s stable star at Fairyhouse last weekend.
Cooper partnered the eight-yearold on nine of his 13 career starts, including a Grade One victory at last year’s Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown.
Latest Exhibition went on to be beaten a neck by Monkfish in the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle at the 2020 Cheltenham Festival and was runner-up to the same horse in two Grade One novice chases last term. Nolan’s charge reverted to the smaller obstacles for the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle, but it proved to be his final outing.
Cooper said: ‘Latest Exhibition came along at a very important time in my career. He really helped me to get back on the big stage.
‘It was sickening what happened to him and we’ll miss him. They’re horses of a lifetime and you don’t come across them every week.’