Timeform Daily View | Sunday preview and tips
John Ingles provides an overview of the key things to note on the racing front on Sunday.
Three points of interest
Galopin des Champs and Fastorslow meet again in John Durkan
This year’s John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase (14:25) looks a belter, with the star attraction being Galopin des Champs who will be bidding to win his third Cheltenham Gold Cup later this season, having also begun his two previous campaigns in this contest and winning it in 2022 when it was run almost a month later. There’s little doubt he’s the best of the nine chasers in the field, despite it being a very strong line-up, being 6 lb clear in the Timeform ratings in this level-weights contest.
But that’s assuming Galopin des Champs will be at his very best first time out, which wasn’t the case in this contest twelve months ago when beaten a length and three quarters into third behind Martin Brassil’s Fastorslow who jumped the more fluently of the pair. Galopin des Champs has only been beaten three times in completed starts over fences, with all three of those defeats coming at Punchestown at the hands of Fastorslow, so if Galopin des Champs is going to be vulnerable at all this season, it’s likely to be here.
The four and a half length beating Galopin des Champs gave to Fastorslow in last season’s Irish Gold Cup is a better reflection of how the pair compare form-wise, though Fastorslow’s fall in the Cheltenham Gold Cup prevented another meaningful clash between the old rivals. However, when they last met, Fastorslow beat a below-par Galopin des Champs for the second year running in the Punchestown Gold Cup at the beginning of May. It therefore wouldn’t be quite the shock result it was last year if Fastorslow can lower Galopin des Champs’ colours again, and with regular partner J. J. Slevin out injured, top amateur Derek O’Connor takes over in the saddle.
But there’s more to this race than simply another showdown between Galopin des Champs or Fastorslow. Three of J. P. McManus’s very promising novices from last season all make their reappearances too – Fact To File, Spillane’s Tower and Inothewayurthinkin – all for different yards. Fact To File is another of a total of five Willie Mullins runs here and is widely regarded as the biggest threat to Galopin des Champs winning his third Gold Cup in March after landing the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase at last season’s Festival in the manner of a potential Gold Cup horse.
Coko Beach looks best over the banks
Punchestown’s opening contest is the Risk of Thunder Chase (11:35) run over three miles of the cross-country course and named after the Sean Connery-owned chaser who earned legendary status with his seven consecutive wins over the banks at the Punchestown Festival in the La Touche Cup. His three wins in that race between 1997 and 1999 were all gained under Enda Bolger who also trained him for the second half of his career.
Bolger has farmed the Risk of Thunder, sending out 12 of the last 16 winners, but while his trio this year include course winner Stealthy Tom, the one they all have to beat on these terms is Gordon Elliott’s very smart chaser Coko Beach. The winner of the Troytown Handicap Chase at Navan this time last year before finishing second in the Becher Chase at Aintree, Coko Beach looked a natural on his first try over Punchestown’s cross country course when successful over course and distance in February. He seemed to find the extra mile or so of the La Touche Cup stretching this stamina when third in that contest later in the year so should appreciate the return to this trip.
Coko Beach was still in contention when unseating late on in the Velka Pardubicka in the Czech Republic last time but can follow in the footsteps of another Gigginstown-owned chaser Delta Work who won the Risk of Thunder for Elliott two years ago. In receipt of 10 lb, Gavin Cromwell’s 2023 Grand National runner-up Vanillier (down the field along with Coko Beach back at Aintree in April) and his stablemate Stumptown, a course-and-distance winner at the Punchestown Festival, look Coko Beach’s main threats.
More Glory for Elliott in Craddockstown?
Gordon Elliott has won three of the last four renewals of the Craddockstown Novice Chase (13:50), a Grade 2 two-mile contest, and has good claims of winning it again with two runners in this year’s renewal. Keith Donoghue partners Gigginstown’s Touch Me Not who shaped encouragingly on last month’s chasing debut over course and distance when going down by a neck to the re-opposing Fascile Mode after jumping soundly in front and being edged out only late on.
Jack Kennedy was on board Touch Me Not on that occasion but evidently prefers stablemate Farren Glory after making all the running on him to land the odds in a four-runner beginners chase at Naas earlier this month. That was a straightforward task for Farren Glory, although his jumping wasn’t entirely fluent, but he remains open to improvement having been a Grade 1 winner over hurdles last season when Fascile Mode was among those he beat in the Royal Bond Novice Hurdle at Fairyhouse.
Farren Glory looks the one to beat but could be given most to do by Joseph O’Brien’s Nurburgring who is only 2 lb behind him in the Timeform weight-adjusted ratings given his weight allowance as a four-year-old. O’Brien won this contest in 2022 and Nurburgring, the Galway Hurdle winner in the summer, was a promising staying-on third behind an Elliott-trained pair on his chasing debut at Navan earlier this month.
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