The Betway ambassador previews his rides on Day 5 at Punchestown, headlined by Jade De Grugy in the Mares Champion Hurdle.
As we reach the final day of the Punchestown Festival, it’s been another incredible week of highs & lows. The highs of Gaelic Warrior & Il Etais Temps’ breathtaking performances, and the lows of Kopek Des Bordes, Kitzbuhel, and a few others.
They’ll be back to fight another day, no doubt, but I head into Saturday with four good rides once again, and I’ll be hoping we can very much end the week on a high.
Uncle Pat starts us off on Saturday in the Handicap Chase (15:05), and he’s been running consistently well all season, so he probably deserves to win one of these. His consistency is what’s making life tough for him, though, because he’s just creeping up in the weights without winning.
He goes up further in trip here, but I think that will suit, particularly on this drying ground, and he might just be one of those horses that gets better the further you go with him.
It’s a competitive race, but we arrive here in good form, and we have a nice racing weight, so I’d be very hopeful Uncle Pat can run another big race here.
It will be another great clash between Wodhooh and Jade De Grugy 6/4 in the Mares Champion Hurdle (16:15), and we’ll be in there trying our best to reverse the form from Cheltenham. We have the cheekpieces on here to try and eke out a bit of improvement, so hopefully that can help us turn the tables with Gordon’s mare.
It looks between the two of them, but Wodhooh is a very good mare, and she’s extremely tough, so it certainly won’t be an easy assignment. She does hit a bit of a flat spot in her races, but she just keeps finding, and I’d say we don’t actually know how good she is, because she might just be saving something back for herself.
There isn’t much between them on ratings, so we’ll be in there giving it our best shot, but I’m going there in hope rather than expectation, I’d say.
The juveniles seem to be a good bunch this year, so the Champion Four Year Old Hurdle (16:55) looks a really strong renewal. This will be the first time I’ve ridden Apolon De Charnie 15/8 on the racecourse, but I was seriously impressed with him in the Triumph Hurdle when Patrick was on board. He’s a pretty unassuming horse because he was doing nice work going into Cheltenham, but he wasn’t blowing us away by any stretch of the imagination. He was really professional that day, though, and he’s probably the one open to the most improvement, so he was the obvious choice.
There’s very little between Proactif and Macho Man on their recent runs, and they should both run well again, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Majolique reversed that Fairyhouse form with the pair of them. I felt we were a little bit unlucky that day, but if Sean (O’Keefe) can get a bit of cover on her and keep her straight, she could finish ahead of the boys this time.
My final ride of Punchestown 2026 will be Jump Allen in the Listed Handicap (17:30), and he was a real eyecatcher in the Martin Pipe, I thought. He was really unlucky that day, because he didn’t get a run anywhere he went, but he finished the race very strongly, so with a clearer passage, I can see him going very close.
There wouldn’t appear to be much between him and Kel Histoire on that run, but Jump Allen had to overcome a lot of traffic problems, as I said, so I’d be hopeful we can confirm the form with him. Laurets d’Estruval is a horse I’ve always liked, and he should go well at an each-way price too.
It’s a competitive race every year, and it always takes a bit of winning, but Jump Allen looks the right favourite to me, and as long as he gets a bit of luck in running, he should be running another big race.
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