Not many jockeys can have discarded the reigning Cheltenham Gold Cup champion on their return to action but not many riders are in Mark Walsh’s enviable position.
Rarely has the depth of resources available to JP McManus’s number one pilot been underlined more than by Sunday’s John Durkan Chase at Punchestown.
Inothewayurthinkin, the horse that delivered Walsh and trainer Gavin Cromwell a career-defining success in last season’s blue riband, starts down the road to the defence of his title in March.
To no one’s surprise, though, Walsh is on last year’s Durkan winner Fact To File, leaving Keith Donoghue to renew acquaintance with a horse he rode in all three starts last season prior to stepping aside for the biggest day of all.
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Sunday’s €150,000 highlight is an 11-runner contest that’s minus the 2022 winner Galopin De Champs, but otherwise is crammed with the cream of Ireland’s top chasing talent.
Four of the 11 runners are officially rated at 170 or more and the reigning Aintree Grand National champion Nick Rockett is just shy of that heady mark on 169.
He is one of a Willie Mullins septet as the champion trainer pursues an 11th success in the race. It’s a squad that includes both I Am Maximus and Grangeclare West, who filled the National frame in Liverpool, as well as the mercurial Gaelic Warrior and another Gold Cup prospect in Lecky Watson.
The quality is added to by the 2023 Durkan winner Fastorslow, back for a first start since last year’s race, and yet some bookmakers still anticipate there being an odds-on favourite.
Fact To File spanned the distance spectrum last season, twice coming up short at three miles against Galopin Des Champs, before ending the season with defeat at the minimum trip.
In between, however, he showed this intermediate test is right up his street, running out a superb nine-length Ryanair winner at Cheltenham.
A general 10-1 shot for the Gold Cup in March, and only marginally longer than that for the Champion Chase, all evidence to date still suggests the middle trip is his optimum.
If Inothewayurthinkin improves on his seventh in last year’s Durkan, it will probably be a satisfactory first step on the road back to Cheltenham. But this is much more of a priority for Fact To File, hence he has Walsh on his back.
Just how forward these star names are for their first start of the season is an unknown factor. Only two of the 11 runners have a run under their belts. If Seneca is a big outsider, then Heart Wood could be one to exploit fitness issues elsewhere.
The 2½-mile test on testing ground looks his ideal bag too and he won well on his return to action last month. He has ground to make up on figures, and on Ryanair form, but may be able to shake them all up on this day, if not others in the coming winter.
Just how tantalising a prospect the Durkan looks may be highlighted even more by Saturday’s Betfair Chase at Haydock, Britain’s first Grade One of the jumps season.
Native River in 2018 is the only cross-channel trained Gold Cup winner in the last 10 years and it’s a stat that doesn’t look like changing in this campaign.
Grey Dawning is favourite to go one better than in the race a year ago while his conqueror then, Royale Pagaille, has been repeatedly exposed at the very top level.
The Irish Grand National winner Haiti Couleurs is touted as a potential Gold Cup horse but is currently rated the same as Gordon Elliott’s hope Stellar Story. Victory for the latter will only ensure more focus on Punchestown 24 hours later.
McManus has almost 30 runners in Ireland this weekend and if Fact To File is Walsh’s priority, then topweight Joueur Masque in an earlier handicap looks another with a big chance.
Punchestown’s main support event is the Grade Two Matchbook Craddockstown Novice Chase and it could prove a good opportunity for Fleur In The Park. Feet Of A Dancer in the Listed Hurdle might be more at home on the going than her rivals.
Jack Kennedy and Danny Mullins will be in action in Cork on Sunday, where a Mares’ Beginners Chase will be of particular interest.
Kennedy is on board the smart hurdler Kala Conti, while The Big Westerner is another big player. Mullins, though, might emerge on top through the dual-Grade One winning hurdler Jade De Grugy.
