RACING JOURNALIST JOHNNY Ward gives his best tips – along with the latest BoyleSports odds and offers – as Leopardstown’s Christmas Festival continues.
Imagine telling your loved one that you had done an accumulator on Willie Mullins’ six winners on day two at Leopardstown and your reward was just over 100-1.
One man told me he had backed five of the six in an accumulator but instead of putting in Blue Lord in the Grade One chase, he’d put in stablemate Chacun Pour Soi! I consoled him but reflected that the odds would have been even lower had Chacun Pour Soi prevailed.
How healthy this dominance is for racing is certainly debatable, but a winner is a winner and I am going for three short enough favourites — one trained by Mullins — on day three.
This race honours Jack de Bromhead, whose death this year shocked racing to its very core; it hardly needs saying that victory for Bob Olinger, trained by his dad Henry, would be received like no race ever before at this track. Think Faugheen but much louder!
He has a chance of pulling it off but he remains under a bit of a cloud after what should be three successive defeats (he was gifted success at Cheltenham by Galopin Des Champs’ fall).
Should any of the bigger-priced runners take your fancy, BoyleSports are offering money back as a free bet (max €10) on all losers in this race, but the more one analyses the race, the harder it is to get away from Flooring Porter. Imperious in the last two runnings of the Stayers’ Hurdle, had he broken on the same terms as Klassical Dream 12 months ago, it’s likely he’d be going for a hat-trick in this too.
He was behind Home By The Lee and Bob Olinger at Navan but this is his trip and he can make all.
The vibes about the Gold Cup winner suggest all is well, in which case he should win this, but you are getting a much bigger price than he was 12 months ago.
Quite what happened at Haydock remains something of a mystery but he’s much fairer judged on general form, is only an eight-year-old, and clearly the class act in this. He may have questions to answer but Galvin bombed at Down Royal and Conflated was pretty well-beaten in the end too. The rest can hardly win.
Expect Rachael Blackmore to ride a waiting race on the champion stayer. You are getting comfortably odds against about a horse who really only has to run his race to be a certain winner.
I was all over Minella Crooner when he beat I Am Maximus at Fairyhouse; there’s no doubt I was on a lucky winner. Despite losing any amount of ground edging left at his fences, especially so late on, I Am Maximus was still rallying at the line and would have gotten back up shortly afterwards.
Given Minella Crooner was touched off on his chase debut in a graded contest, it seemed incredible that punters would send I Am Maximus off at 4-6, given he had no chasing experience. That should stand to him hugely and clearly going left-handed has to be much more up his street here.
The one concern is that the quality of opposition, arguably headed by Gentlemansgame, is strong, but one could hardly be any way confident opposing what looks a Grade One chaser in the making.
All the novice chase events so far here this week have gone to Willie Mullins.
BoyleSports has a money back offer on every single race of the Leopardstown festival, offering customers maximum value for the festival and throughout Christmas.
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