Jane Mangan’s William Hill blog: Punchestown Festival Day One tips

William Hill ambassador Jane Mangan previews the first day of the Punchestown Festival, including a tip in the William Hill Champion Chase between Fact To File and Marine Nationale.

Punchestown, Tuesday 

Before we go through the racing, I just have a quick statistic. There are 12 Grade Ones run at the Punchestown Festival. Over the last three years, of the 36 Grade Ones run, Willie Mullins has won 26 of them – I expect the trend to be as strong as ever.

We start with the Albert Bartlett Series Final (3:05pm). It looks a cracking race, with eight horses arriving from the UK to take their chances. That’s exactly what the Punchestown team would have wanted when making this race with Ronnie Bartlett. However, I’ve gone for an Irish horse. William Hill ambassador Keith Donoghue has got down to his minimum weight of 11 stone to partner Hartur D’Arc, which is significant. The horse is running off a mark of 118, despite a mark of 137 over fences. He is well in based on that, and he has good form over hurdles. I believe he is the choice of Gavin Cromwell’s trio in the race. If he’s good enough for Keith Donoghue to skip meals for a week – he’s the one for me!

The Listed handicap hurdle (3:40pm) is a very interesting race, won last year by the classy Daddy Long Legs – that’s the calibre of horse you need to be getting your head in front here. The drying ground will enhance the chances of Lark In The Mornin, last year’s winner of the Fred Winter at the Cheltenham Festival off 118. He did disappoint me in the County Hurdle, but he’s better than that. Danny Mullins takes the ride, and I think he is the class act that we are looking for in this race. He’s the one for me.

The Grade 1 novice hurdle (4:15pm) looks simple to me. Kopek Des Bordes is the best novice hurdler that we have seen this season, and he will enhance Willie’s record in this race by making it nine wins in the last 11 renewals. I think he is the best around – hopefully, he can make it five wins out of five this season.

The Grade 1 novice chase (4:50pm) was won last year by Spillane’s Tower and this time around it looks quite the renewal. Willie Mullins has five of the contenders here. It’s great to see an overseas entry in Don’t Rightly Know, but I think the fact that Paul Townend has remained loyal to Ballyburn tells you all you need to know. I expect him to be ridden differently this time around; patient tactics didn’t work at Cheltenham, and I think that he will look to go forward and make use of his jumping. He pulled way too hard, and I think we will see a far better performance this time around.

The feature race of the day is the William Hill Champion Chase (6:00pm). Since 2006, five of the seven Queen Mother Champion Chase winners who have contested this race have won. However, I don’t see that trend being enhanced here, as I believe Fact To File has all the class in the world to win this race. He destroyed his rivals in the Ryanair Chase, in what was arguably the most impressive performance of the week. He won over two miles and three furlongs at this venue, beating Galopin Des Champs, Inothewayurthinkin and Spillane’s Tower in the John Durkan – it tells you the calibre of horse he has beaten. I don’t see any issue with him dropping down to this trip of two miles; it’s his first time at the trip since he ran in the Cheltenham Bumper, but I think it will be that man Willie Mullins again in the William Hill Champion Chase.