Three horses who could outrun their odds this week
Up and at it: The Yellow Clay tumbles at the 2025 Punchestown Racing Festival but has been given plenty of time to recover. Pic: Morgan Treacy, Inpho
A Grade One-winning novice hurdler last season, The Yellow Clay found only leading Champion Hurdle contender The New Lion too good in the Turners at last year’s Festival, finishing nearly five lengths in front of leading Brown Advisory Novices' Chase contender Final Demand in the process.
Should both horses deliver in their respective Grade One assignments, The Yellow Clay will surely go off a good deal shorter in this handicap hurdle.
Gordon Elliott probably had grander plans for The Yellow Clay than a Cheltenham handicap but he had a very hard race when second in a Navan Grade Two on his seasonal reappearance in November and may still have been feeling the effects of that when disappointing at Leopardstown at Christmas.
However, he has been given plenty of time to recover from those runs and if he bounces back to last season’s form, he’ll be a big player in this race.
Given how deep the ground was at Leopardstown last month it’ll be no great surprise if some horses who ran well — or even won — at the Dublin Racing Festival disappoint this week.
Equally, there will probably be horses who toiled in the ground at Leopardstown who show themselves to far better effect on a likely sounder surface at Cheltenham.
That makes the Gordon Elliott-trained Charismatic Kid of interest in the Champion Bumper. Word was strong for his prospects at Leopardstown and he was duly sent off the 7-4 favourite. He didn’t run terribly by any means but the fact he was beaten into third by two big-priced stablemates was a bit underwhelming.
Towards the head of the Champion Bumper market before Leopardstown, he’s now as big as 25-1 and time may prove that to be an overreaction.
Like The Yellow Clay, Hello Neighbour kept top company last season, winning a Grade One at the Dublin Racing Festival before finishing sixth in the Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham and a good third at Punchestown.
However, like many Gavin Cromwell-trained horses, he has struggled for form this season, most recently finishing seventh in a handicap hurdle at the Dublin Racing Festival having finished a respectable fifth to Lossiemouth at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting.
Cromwell recently spoke positively about his County Hurdle prospects and, on last season’s evidence, he certainly has the class to make his presence felt at a tasty each-way price.
