Punchestown Festival Final Day, Saturday 29th
The final day of the Punchestown Festival gets underway at 2:35 on Saturday and whilst the week has been a Willie Mullins benefit, there have been a couple of surprises along the way to keep things interesting. Here are our teams’ thoughts on the Final day of the festival.
2:35 Donohue Solutions Cross Country Chase
It can pay to follow course form in these Banks races and that makes the winner of this race in 2022, HURRICANE DARWIN, very interesting. He is a 13-year-old now, but has held his form very well this season, winning twice in the autumn before creditable efforts at Gowran and Navan. He finished 3rd behind Any Second Now in the Grade 2 Webster Cup in March which was very respectable effort and is probably the strongest piece of racecourse form in this lineup.
This will surely have been the plan for some time and with a great record over the Banks course, he gets our vote.
3:10 Colm Quinn BMW Handicap Chase
Quite a few of these runners have been disappointing and that term could also apply to our selection AIONE, but he arrives here with strong recent winning form, which could be key. He is a 10-year-old and has missed a lot of time in his career, but Willie Mullins and Rich Ricci are persisting and after a couple of poor runs at Navan, he bounced right back to form to get the better of Largy Debut and Where it All Began in a Beginners Chase at Cork 3-weeks ago. That was a massive step in the right direction and leaves him looking well treated on a mark of 130if he can back it up.
He won a bumper here in 2019 and also ran well here over fences on New Year’s Eve, so there should be no concern over the track. Danny Mullins is booked to ride.
3:50 Coolmore NH Sires Mogul Irish EBF Mares Champion Hurdle
Epatante doesn’t look like she retains the ability she once had, whilst both Brandy Love and Echoes in Rain have been too inconsistent to be relied upon. With that in mind this race could setup perfectly for LOVE ENVOI. She found only Honeysuckle too good in the Mares hurdle at the Cheltenham festival and with another soft lead looking likely, she is an obvious selection with such strong recent form in the book.
She has won 8 of her 10 career starts and although she was beaten by Brandy Love at Fairyhouse last season, that came after a huge effort to win at Cheltenham and with a greater gap to recover this time around, she should reverse that form.
*Prices subject to fluctuation.
Punchestown Final Festival Day 29/04/2023
