Powers Gold Cup is a done deal for Hughes
The six-year-old opened his account over fences in hugely impressive style at Navan last month and Hughes feels the testing conditions will play a huge part in the outcome of Sunday’s contest.
“It is a step up in class but he was impressive the last day and he might be up to it,” said Hughes.
“I don’t think the ground will worry him too much as it was pretty soft when he fell in Fairyhouse in February and he seemed to be handling it well.
“I thought we had the winner (Becauseicouldntsee) covered that day and he went on to run well in the National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham.
“It will be a good race but it will be down to who handles the ground on the day as it’s going to be dreadful.”
A total of 10 runners have been declared with Colm Murphy’s Zaarito the likely favourite.
Willie Mullins runs Kempes and Shakervilz, Nicanor bids to bounce back having been pulled-up at Cheltenham, while Jadanli and Let Yourself Go are other interesting contenders.
The latter has won four of his six starts over fences and trainer Adrian Maguire believes he is ready to test the water at the highest level.
“It’s a step up but he’s entitled to do it on what we’ve seen from him so far,” said Maguire.
“He’s won on heavy ground, I’m not saying that’s what he wants but at least he’s won on it and he seems in very good form.
“He had a busy start to his season and after he finished fourth at Galway in October we decided to give him a break as we just felt that run wasn’t him.
“We freshened him up and he won well on his first run back at Thurles and you’d like to think he’ll improve a bit for that.
“He does seem to be at his best when fresh so we’ve given him a little bit of a break since the last day and we’ll see how he gets on, but we’re looking forward to it.”
Mullins is hopeful of a decent showing from his pair.
The champion trainer said in his weekly blog on www.goracing.ie: “Both of them have been doing everything right.
“Kempes is a winner at the (Fairyhouse) festival before, while Shakervilz will be better for the half-mile longer trip now, having surprised us by twice winning over two miles.”
