Sizing Europe impossible to oppose
Feature event is the Boylesports.com Champion Chase and it is impossible to oppose Henry de Bromhead’s Sizing Europe.
He has between 10lbs and 20lbs in hand of his five rivals and a typically slick round of jumping from the imposing ten-year-old should be more than sufficient.
The surface is going to be testing, but he made light of heavy ground here in February when slamming Big Zeb by 15 lengths.
Sizing Europe was then a warm order at Cheltenham, in the two mile Champion Chase, but was beaten a length and a quarter into second, after the final fence was controversially bypassed.
He had Big Zeb 15 lengths behind in third, Gauvain and Realt Dubh were further back, and the form was nicely boosted when Finian’s Rainbow went on to win easily at Aintree.
Willie Mullins’ Sir Des Champs is regarded as a possible future Cheltenham Gold Cup winner and if such lofty notions are to prove in any way realistic then he has to dismiss, with the minimum of fuss, the opposition in the Growise Champion Novice Chase.
Sir Des Champs is unbeaten over fences, and in six races in total since coming from France to be trained by Mullins, and it is still difficult enough to get a handle on just how good he is.
The six-year-old cruised away from Champion Court to land the Jewson at the Cheltenham festival last time and is expected to be even more effective now with a further five furlongs to travel.
Charles Byrnes’ Trifolium gets the vote to justify likely tight odds in the Evening Herald Champion Novice Hurdle.
He handles heavy ground with aplomb and, considering how lively the surface was, emerged with reputation enhanced when third behind Cinders And Ashes and Darlan in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham. Darlan boosted the form when winning at Aintree subsequently.
Alderwood is in the form of his life right now and followed success in the County Hurdle at Cheltenham with a fine display of front-running at Fairyhouse.
But Trifolium will surely be far more at home in the conditions and that sways one very much towards him.
