O’Leary offers Bumper deal
The offer will be screened live on television before the Ladbrokes Irish Grand National.
The Ryanair supremo will put up a further €25,000 bonus if the winner progresses to land a Graded Novice Hurdle next season and the same amount again in the event of that horse winning a Graded Chase.
Seventy-eight horses are entered in the €50,000 race over two and a quarter miles. They include the Noel Meade-trained Formidableopponent, owned by JP McManus.
Apart from these contenders, last year’s champion point-to-point trainer Colin Bowe is targeting the Irish Racing Post promotion with his smart Lingstown winner Allthekingshorses, which the Wexford handler regards as “probably the best Maiden winner I’ve had so far.”
Cork-based Robert Tyner also has his young team in top form and will be hopeful of landing the Easter Monday prize with another promising five-year-old Kandinski which obliged at Knockanard in February and picked up valuable bumper experience when runner-up at Gowran Park earlier this month.
While the entries closed last Wednesday, the four-year-old and five-year-old contenders to which the O’Leary offer exclusively applies have until April 19 to meet the Champion Bumper’s qualifying criterion of finishing first, second or third in a point-to-point.
