14:00
Cheltenham
Odds correct as of 9:43am 12th Feb
Willie Mullins’ Cheltenham Festival stable tour came out in the Racing Post this week and it was certainly informative. He gave us an update on a number of his Cheltenham-bound horses and is very bullish about some in particular. With that in mind, we’ve selected some horses whose updates were notably positive. Check out our free tips page for daily content across British and Irish racing.
This horse went into the Ladbrokes Novice Chase at the Dublin Racing Festival as the second-string runner but that’s not how the race panned out. Mullins said: “He’s a very good horse. He disappointed last year as I always thought he was way better than that. This year, he’s showing me on the racetrack what he was showing me at home.”
Absolutely bolting up in a bumper on his first start under rules, Love Sign d’Aunou put himself right in the mix for the Champion Bumper and his trainer was impressed. He said: “It was a huge performance at Naas. It was a deep enough race and he didn’t beat them, he hammered them. What I loved about it was he never really showed me that at home and I love horses that come out and can do it on the racetrack.”
Majborough was let down by his jumping earlier on in the season but produced a dominant display to win the Dublin Chase last time out. His trainer said: “We’ve all had our opinions on how he should be ridden. Mark [Walsh] just said he’d rather do what he wanted to do at Leopardstown and it worked like a dream. That was fantastic and if Mark can repeat that performance, he’s going to run a fantastic race at Cheltenham.”
He could hardly have been more impressive when winning his maiden hurdle and the sky’s the limit for him off the back of that performance. Mullins said: “When Mark got off him at Fairyhouse, he said he had a look around at the second-last and couldn’t believe how far in front he was. Looking at him, you’d probably say Turners but when you listen to Mark and see what he did on the day, you’re into Faugheen-type territory and those things don’t happen very often.”
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