Paul Townend back on Galopin for clash with Fact To File

The Leopardstown Racing Festival continues tomorrow with the eagerly anticipated Savills Chase which is the highlight of the week. 

Cork’s Paul Townend will be reunited with Galopin Des Champs who will look to win a third consecutive Cheltenham Gold Cup in March. But this race is a huge stepping stone and Fact To File is the young pretender and won the John Durkan Chase at Punchestown. Both horses are trained by Willie Mullins who has elected to let them do battle again.

Dual Gold Cup winner Galopin Des Champs put in a stunning performance to land last year's Savills, storming 23 lengths clear of Gerri Colombe, and his record over fences at Leopardstown is a flawless five from five, which includes four Grade 1s. Fact To File got the better of him on his seasonal reappearance in the John Durkan last month, when the JP McManus-owned chaser made a winning start to open company by beating Spillane's Tower by half a length, with his stablemate back in third. 

Galopin Des Champs is marginally favoured by bookmakers to reverse the form stepping up in trip at a course he relishes, as he is 6-4 favourite with most firms and should cement his place at the top of the Gold Cup betting.

High-profile Cork owner Joe Donnelly has plenty of top-class horses in his ranks and his star hurdler State Man is odds on to land the Grade 1 Neville Hotels Hurdle for the third time in succession on Sunday, when he renews rivalry with Brighterdaysahead, who handed him his first domestic defeat since 2021 in the Morgiana last month. 

State Man is a 4-7 shot to land his 11th Grade 1, while Gordon Elliott's star mare is a best-priced 11-4 to confirm the Punchestown form. State Man will also have the services of the champion jockey Paul Townend and the champion trainer set out his plans earlier in the week.

Mullins said: "Fact To File and Galopin Des Champs are both well and worked last Saturday morning. They seem in good order and both are on course for the Savills. State Man is in good form and is on track for the Grade 1 at Leopardstown."

CLASH

Another huge clash takes place at Kempton today when Ballyburn and Sir Gino lock horns in the Ladbrokes Wayward Lad Novices' Chase. Sir Gino is also owned by Joe Donnelly and was bought privately by Ballinora native Jerry McGrath. Sir Gino missed the Cheltenham Festival last season as the Nicky Henderson horses were sick but he went on to win convincingly at Aintree. He had a comfortable victory in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle but chasing was always the plan with this horse.

Ballyburn was a winner at last year’s Cheltenham Festival and is highly rated by the Willie Mullins camp. His next target has been the subject of much conjecture, given the two-mile Grade 1 novice chase at Leopardstown has been axed, but Mullins indicated he was crossing the Irish Sea with the hugely talented six-year-old, meaning a clash is on with the Nicky Henderson-trained Sir Gino who will be making his chasing debut.

The Ronnie Bartlett and David Manasseh-owned Ballyburn looked a rare talent as a novice hurdler, landing Grade 1 honours at Leopardstown before blitzing the Gallagher Novices' Hurdle field at Cheltenham by 13 lengths, and following up at Punchestown.

He tackled fences for the first time last month at Punchestown, where he made light work of a 12-runner field, gliding 13 lengths clear of stablemate Ocastle Des Mottes, which put him at the head of the ante-post market for both Grade 1 novice chases at the Cheltenham Festival. But Sir Gino is also hugely talented and this is a real bonus for racing fans. Scrapping the Grade 1 at Leopardstown seemed a very strange decision but Kempton is very much the beneficiary on this occasion.

Conna rider Johnny Burke was back in the headlines this week after riding Crambo to Grade 1 success at Ascot on Saturday. Burke had also ridden a treble earlier in the week at Newbury.

Crambo repeated his victory of last year when grimly holding on to win a second Howden Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot.

Sent off at 9-1, Crambo had plenty to do jumping the second last before his stamina kicked in. Once Johnny Burke had mastered him, there was a new danger, as Henry de Bromhead’s Hiddenvalley Lake put down the final challenge, but he just failed by a head under another Cork man Darragh O’Keeffe.