Irish-trained horses have won seven of the last nine Smurfit Kappa Champion Hurdles and the race again looks the best chance for major festival success for the raiders as Cheltenham's championship races start to take shape.
Sizing Europe looks like heading the Irish cast as the spectacularly impressive AIG winner retains his position as clear favourite for the Day One festival feature after just 29 entries were left in the Champion Hurdle at yesterday's forfeit stage.
Seventeen of those are trained in Ireland but it remains Sizing Europe who dominates the ante-post betting and the general 9 to 4 favourite remains on course for a Leopardstown-Cheltenham double completed by Brave Inca in 2006.
"He's very well and seems in great form. We will probably keep doing things at home although we might take him somewhere to work," said Sizing Europe's trainer Henry De Bromhead yesterday. "I thought it was amazing how well he beat the others at Leopardstown. Bookmakers and punters have made him favourite and I just hope they're right."
Sizing Europe will be backed up by a powerful Irish squad that also includes the reigning title-holder Sublimity as well as the 2005 runner-up Harchibald.
Kicking King, due to run at Gowran on Saturday, heads Irish hopes in the Gold Cup but despite 34 entries remaining in steeplechasing's blue riband, the race continues to be dominated by the Paul Nicholls-trained pair, Kauto Star and Denman.
Just five Irish horses remain in the Queen Mother Champion Chase headed by the 2006 winner Newmill who has emerged unscathed from a fall at Punchestown on his last start.
Newmill is also one of 11 Irish names in the Ryanair Chase, which will be run as a Grade One for the first time, but his trainer John Murphy said: "Our preference is the Queen Mother. He's A1 after Punchestown and he's fine with no repercussions and thankfully in one piece. He didn't get his ground in that Tied Cottage Chase but it was our only chance to run him. I am really looking forward to running him on some good ground as he is his true self and on good ground he can show his speed."
Mossbank, owned by the race sponsor Michael O'Leary, heads the list of probable raiders for the Ryanair Chase while Hardy Eustace, who also has the Champion Hurdle option, heads the Irish possibles for the Ladbrokes World Hurdle and is a general 10 to 1 shot for the longer race.
Hopes for a bumper Cheltenham for the Irish, however, don't appear to be high with betting focusing on the lower end of the scale.
The four and five winner marks are the 9 to 2 joint favourites with Cashmans but the Cork firm report most business below that. "Two winners has been backed in from 10 to 1 to 8 to 1 and it is two, three and four that have been most popular," a spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Charlie Swan has ruled his Powers Gold Cup winner One Cool Cookie out of a clash with Kauto Star in Saturday's Commerical First Ascot Chase. Instead he will tackle Kicking King in the Red Mills Chase at Gowran on the same day. "He is also in at Fairyhouse the weekend after next but we are looking at Gowran at this stage. He is in good form," Swan said yesterday.
