Punchestown Festival: Five things to watch
Donn McClean looks at some of the potential talking points at this week's Punchestown Festival.
Willie Mullins
It’s not news, but it’s still worthwhile noting the Willie Mullins Punchestown thing, because the degree to which the champion trainer dominates the Punchestown Festival these days is unprecedented. Think Dermot Weld in his pomp at Galway, think Martin Pipe at Cheltenham’s November meeting and multiply it by something large enough.
Willie Mullins has this ability to stretch his team out all the way to the end of the season, through Christmas, through the Dublin Racing Festival, through Cheltenham at peak (remember, 10 winners this year), through Aintree (okay, not so much Aintree, although Gentleman De Mee did win the Maghull Chase) and to have the majority of his team members somehow at or close to their respective peaks at Punchestown, just before the Guineas.
Last year, Willie Mullins had 19 winners at the Punchestown Festival: five on Tuesday and again on Thursday, three on each of the other three days. He won all three Grade 1 races on the Tuesday, and nine of the 12 Grade 1 races of the week. He had at least one Grade 1 winner and at least one other winner on each of the five days.
And it wasn’t just the big highest-profile Mullins guns that fired. Jazzaway won the Killashee Hotel Handicap Hurdle at 10/1, Brahma Bull was allowed go off at 14/1 before he won the Pat Taaffe Handicap Chase, Koshari won the Bar One Racing Handicap Hurdle at 25/1, just getting up to beat Ciel De Neige in a near 573/1 Willie Mullins exacta.
Expect more of the same this week.
The Champion Chase
The big clashes start early in the week: the William Hill Champion Chase is the fourth race on the first day.
This race has a habit of throwing up big clashes. Chacun Pour Soi v Allaho last year, Un De Sceaux v Min in 2019, Un De Sceaux v Douvan and Min in 2018. The Willie Mullins thread ran through all three of those, and that is a quality shared with this year’s clash, Energumene v Chacun Pour Soi, but that does not decrease the intensity of competition. Did anyone care that Kauto Star and Denman lived next door to each other in Ditcheat as they raised Denman scarves or clutched Kauto Star dockets?
Energumene and Chacun Pour Soi have met just once, in the Champion Chase at Cheltenham, but their meeting was inconclusive, Chacun departing at the fifth last fence before the race had started in earnest. With Shishkin already out of the race at that point, it was left to Emergumene to record a fairly bloodless victory.
The market says that Energumene is the most likely winner of Tuesday’s race, the eight-year-old, two year’s Chacun’s junior, the second-season chaser who could still be on an upward trajectory. Chacun Pour Soi is 10 now, but history tells you that experience is not a negative in this race. Five of the last 10 winners were aged in double figures, and Un De Sceaux was 11 when he beat his eight-year-old stable companion, the odds-on favourite Min, by four lengths.
Energumene was impressive in winning the Grade 1 Ryanair Novice Chase at this meeting last year, he is one for one at Punchestown, at the Punchestown Festival, but we know that Chacun is dynamite there too. He also won the Grade 1 Ryanair Chase, in 2019, when he announced his arrival at the top table by beating the JLT Chase winner Defi De Seuil and the Arkle winner Duc Des Genievres, and he beat Allaho in this race last year. He is two for two at Punchestown, at the Punchestown Festival. Something is going to have to give.
The crowds
The crowds will be back this year, and that’s going to be a blast.
Not since 4th May 2019, when Ard Abhainn won the concluding bumper and brought the curtain down on that year’s Punchestown Festival, have there been masses of people present to cheer a Punchestown Festival winner home. There weren’t even horses there in 2020, and last year, well, no more than at Leopardstown or at Cheltenham or at Aintree or at Fairyhouse, it was all a little hollow, echoing stands and only a smattering of lucky people around the winner’s enclosure.
They’re calling it The Great Comeback Festival, and that just might be apt. The attendance at Fairyhouse on Irish Grand National day was over 15,000, up from just over 12,000 in 2019, the last time there was an Irish National run behind open doors, and it could be as you were with Punchestown this year. Punchestown say that they are expecting 137,000 people over the course of the five days, that advance ticket sales are up by 80%. Great that the appetite for Punchestown and for top class Irish National Hunt racing appears to be as strong as ever and, if you are going there for lunch, best to get there early.
Honeysuckle
Okay, so the €100,000 match is not on, Constitution Hill will not be making the trip, but Honeysuckle will be there, as she always is.
Honeysuckle is a constant, a perennial, a dependable. The Henry de Bromhead-trained mare has raced 15 times now, 16 times if you include her point-to-point, and she has never been beaten. Strangely, she has raced just once at Punchestown, a significant landmark in her remarkable and continuing journey, where Kenny Alexander bought her at the Goffs sale in 2018 and proclaimed the transaction the best 100 grand he ever spent. That one run was in the Paddy Power Champion Hurdle last year, when she won well, leaving the impression that she had more in hand than the bare two-and-a-quarter-length winning margin. (Honeysuckle usually leaves the impression that she has more in hand than the bare winning margin.) We may not truly know how deeply her talent runs until or unless she is beaten.
The people weren’t there last year, Kenny Alexander’s mare and Rachael Blackmore were denied the whole-hearted welcome that they should have received when they returned from the field of play to the winner’s enclosure. At Cheltenham, where they were denied the victor’s welcome in 2021, they had to go back in 2022 and win the Champion Hurdle again, and the crowds raised the roof. It was spine-tingling stuff at Cheltenham, and it could be a similar story at Punchestown.
The Gold Cup
It’s a deep, deep Ladbrokes Punchestown Gold Cup on Wednesday.
We know that Allaho is dynamite over two and a half miles, that he is pretty much unbeatable at the distance, but there is no race for him over the intermediate trip at the Punchestown Festival. Last year, he dropped in trip to two miles to take on Chacun Pour Soi in the Champion Chase and came up short. This year, he is stepping up in trip to three miles for the Gold Cup.
The Cheveley Park Stud’s horse was a three-mile novice hurdler. He won a Grade 3 race over that trip at Clonmel, before finishing third behind Minella Indo in the Albert Bartlett Hurdle at Cheltenham, and second behind (the same) Minella Indo in the Irish Daily Mirror Novice Hurdle at Punchestown.
He has run over three miles over fences twice, first in the RSA Chase, when he and old adversary Minella Indo got racing early and both were mugged by Champ, and then in the Savills Chase at Leopardstown last season, when he finished fourth behind A Plus Tard.
He may well win the Punchestown Gold Cup, he may be so far superior to his rivals – 4lb and more on official ratings – that he could get away with it over a trip that is not his optimal. However, he has raced over three miles five times and he has won just once. He is zero for two over three miles over fences, and he is zero for four over three miles at Grade 1 level.
Fakir D’Oudairies and Janidil also have to prove their stamina, while dual Cheltenham Gold Cup hero Al Boum Photo is zero for four at Punchestown.
Clan Des Obeaux is a big player, Paul Nicholls’ horse won this race last year, and he looked good in winning the Betway Bowl at Aintree last time, as he did last year before he won the Punchestown Gold Cup. Galvin is also a course winner and we know that he stays well, while Kemboy won this race in 2019 and King George winner Tornado Flyer could out-run his odds again. The 2021 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Minella Indo found only his stable companion A Plus Tard too good at Cheltenham this year, and he won the Grade 1 three-mile novices’ hurdle at this meeting in 2019. At the prices, Henry de Bromhead’s horse could be the value.