Vautour still in Ryanair picture
Vautour clinched a second Cheltenham Festival success with a stunning performance in the JLT Novices’ Chase at Prestbury Park and would be a hot favourite if turning out over the Easter weekend. The champion trainer has also left in Valseur Lido and high-class mares Vroum Vroum Mag and Gitane Du Berlais, as well as Blood Cotil.
Other contenders include the Noel Meade-trained Apache Stronghold, Gordon Elliott’s Clarcam and Gilgamboa from Enda Bolger’s stable.
Fairyhouse manager Peter Roe said: “The inaugural Ryanair Gold Cup has all the ingredients required for an exciting novice chase with quality entries headed by impressive Cheltenham winner Vautour from the Willie Mullins yard.
“The forecast for the weekend is very positive with bright skies and no rain forecast and with the recent rain the ground should be ideal for top-class jump racing.”
Meanwhile the Boylesports Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse on Easter Monday will this season cater for three reserves.
Final declarations for the €275,000 feature must again be made on Friday, but a maximum field of 30 will change if any horse is declared a non-runner up to 10am on Sunday.
Fairyhouse general manager Peter Roe said: “We had a reserve system in place once before, in 2011, but that was when problems with the track meant we were reduced to a maximum of 25 horses.
“The first reserve that year was Beautiful Sound who’d run well at Cheltenham and was the ante-post favourite. But he didn’t get in, and it was only an hour before the first race that day that he was confirmed a non-runner which made a mockery of ante-post betting.
“Previously the Tote couldn’t cope with more than 30 names but that’s been ironed out so on Good Friday, 30 horses, plus three reserves, will be declared.
“And should for any reason there be a non-runner over the weekend, reserves can be declared in their place up to 10am on Sunday morning.”
The Giant Bolster could head to Ireland in a quest to sign off the season with a flourish.
Trainer David Bridgwater will consider running the popular 10-year-old at the Punchestown Festival to atone for having been pulled up in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
The Gloucestershire handler told the Daily Mail: “He is getting a bit long in the tooth and is a bit of an old character.
“He is a little bit cleverer than we are.
“I thought we had lost him last year and then we put the hood and the visor on and he won the Argento Chase and was third in the Gold Cup. You get an effect (with headgear) but it doesn’t always keep working all the time.
“We will give him an entry for Punchestown, which we have never done before.
“That might give him a bit of a spark up travelling over there and being in a different yard for a few days.
“There is no point entering for Aintree because he has always run disastrously there.”
Merry King has been ruled out of the Crabbie’s Grand National with a breathing problem.
The eight-year-old, trained by Jonjo O’Neill, was around 25-1 for the Aintree spectacular on Saturday week.
“Merry King’s not running in the National. He’s got a breathing problem,” said O’Neill’s nephew, Joe.
Merry King was third in the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury in late November, but was pulled up over hurdles on his comeback run at the same track in early February.
The O’Neill stable have the ante-post favourite in Shutthefrontdoor, who will bid to give Tony McCoy a fairtytale victory in his final ride in the world’s greatest steeplechase before he retires.
