KEMBOY’S CUP DUTY
WILLIE MULLINS has been the leading trainer at the Festival in five of the last eight seasons but so far the biggest prize, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, has eluded him.
The brilliant multi-Irish champion trainer has finished runner-up in the race on no fewer than six occasions.
Desperate to end the drought, Mullins has entered nine horses for the 2019 running – sponsored for the first time by Magners, and worth a total of £625,000.
At the sharp end of the Mullins attack, if the ante-post market is an indication, will be Kemboy, the impressive winner of the Grade One Savills Chase over Christmas at Leopardstown. He is currently a 7-1 chance for the Festival.
The Mullins team also includes Bellshill and Total Recall.
But Kemboy will need to jump a whole lot better than he did on his last visit to the Cotswolds when he finished fourth behind Shattered Love in the JLT Chase last March.
Mullins has reported that Kemboy’s next race is likely to be the big one, but we are due to see the favourite, Presenting Percy, imminently.
He has been pencilled in for a belated first race of the term – he has been waiting for softer ground – in the Galmoy Hurdle at Gowran Park on January 24.
Presenting Percy is one of a record 24 Irish entries in the Gold Cup. The total number, 43, is the biggest since 2007.
The Patrick Kelly-trained horse is on a Festival hat-trick having won the Pertemps Final in 2017 and the Grade One RSA Chase last season.
There were no surprise omissions in the list with three of the last four winners – Native River (2018), Sizing John (2017) and Coneygree (2015) all there.
Paddy Power odds: 4 Presenting Percy, 9-2 Native River, 7 Road To Respect, Kemboy, Clan Des Obeaux, 8 Thistlecrack, 12 Al Boum Photo, 12 Sizing John, Bellshill, 16 Might Bite, 20 Others
Harry Whittington is weighing up another Irish raid with his Queen Mother Champion Chase hope Saint Calvados.
Recently third to Altior in the Tingle Creek, Saint Calvados opened his campaign by claiming the scalp of Footpad in a Grade Three event at Naas.
Interest
He is now a possible for the Ladbrokes Dublin Chase at Leopardstown on February 2, with Newbury’s Betfair Exchange Chase (formerly the Game Spirit, on February 9) an alternative.
Much of the interest in the opening hunter chase of 2019 was lost when Cheltenham Foxhunter favourite Shantou Flyer was withdrawn due to the fast nature of the ground at Taunton.
In his absence, Road To Rome duly obliged to become one of nine winning favourites in 12 races at Taunton and Doncaster – a costly afternoon for the layers.