Horse racing: Pearl aims for historic win

Florida Pearl will bid for an historic fourth successive win in the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup as racing finally resumes at Leopardstown tomorrow.

It will be a case of ‘‘after the famine the feast’’ as five leading Cheltenham Gold Cup contenders were declared today for the Grade One event, which will mark the end of 10 days without Irish racing after heavy rain caused widespread waterlogging.

Hopes are high that the weather will not interfere with Sunday’s card, which also features three other major trials for the National Hunt Festival and it is expected to draw a crowd of at least 15,000.

Florida Pearl is ante-post favourite to land the 160,000-Euro feature, and beat Jodami’s record of three straight wins in Ireland’s most prestigious chase.

‘‘It would be great if he could win,’’ said trainer Willie Mullins. ‘‘It would be fantastic for the horse and for his owners.’’

Florida Pearl will be reunited with Adrian Maguire, under whom he won the Pertemps King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day, and is joined in the line-up by stable-companion Alexander Banquet (Barry Geraghty), who was second in this race last year.

‘‘They are both in good shape,’’ Mullins said. ‘‘I am not worried about the ground or the small field - we will make up our minds abut tactics nearer the time.’’

British-trained horses won eight of the first nine runnings of this three-mile contest but none has been successful since Jodami’s final win in 1995 and Henry Daly’s Rowland Meyrick Chase winner Behrajan (Norman Williamson) is the only overseas raider this time.

The Ted Walsh-trained Rince Ri (Ruby Walsh) aims to show last month’s Cheltenham victory was no flash in the pan while Frances Crowley’s one-time Gold Cup favourite Sackville (David Casey) bids to bounce back from a couple of below-form recent efforts.

‘‘He is in good form,’’ Miss Crowley said of Sackville. ‘‘We were a little disappointed with his last couple of runs but he seems quite healthy now.’’