Bobarlee can make Ruby Walsh’s Ballinrobe trip worthwhile
Although it took the six-year-old seven attempts to win a bumper, the Willie Mullins-trained daughter of Arcadio impressed when landing a mares event in Sligo last month, taking command in the straight before easing clear to triumph by fifteen lengths.
Patrick Mullins, who partnered her in six of her bumper runs, suggested after that success that Bobarlee had “taken time to get her act together”, bit that she had improved over the winter.
And that Sligo win came after an absence, since chasing home the smart Don’t Touch It (progressed to win a Grade 1 novice hurdle at the Punchestown Festival) at Punchestown last October.
Bobarlee should know her job and, with Ruby on board, is preferred to the other bumper-winners in the field Wilms Warrior (won in Kilbeggan) and Pursecco (Roscommon).
The market should prove a guide to the prospects of the Mullins-trained debutante Borboleta, a six-year-old Germany mare, in the bumper.
She gets a tentative vote to get the better of Steve Mahon’s Cable, which filled-the runner-up berth behind the Mullins-trained hot-pot Muthaza in a novice hurdle in Galway.
Gordon Elliott runs both top-weight Buyer Beware and Walkabout in the featured E.P.S. 4-Y-0 Handicap Hurdle. Walkabout, winner of his maiden hurdle in Cork back in March and placed in his last three starts, might be good enough to land the spoils.
The Papal Bull gelding hasn’t enjoyed the best of luck in a couple of visits to Kilbeggan and finished third to Chitu there last time. He might enjoy better fortune here, although the booking of Ruby Walsh for bottom-weight King Christophe might be significant.
Supreme Vic, a course winner last summer, might be capable of following-up two recent chase victories, in Killarney and Tipperary, by landing the Broderick’s Electrical Handicap Hurdle for Norman Lee and Jack Kennedy.
