THE LESSONS TO LEARN

PUNCHESTOWN is similar to Aintree in that it’s a big festival at the end of a long hard season, and you can get some strange results. That said, Cheltenham form stacked up well last year.

Of the 12 festival winners who attempted to follow up, nine did so successfully. That’s miles better than anything attempted in the previous ten years, and it was almost all down to the achievements of Willie Mullins. Having had a record ten winners at Cheltenham in March, as many as seven of them followed up at Punchestown.

Mullins’ domination at this meeting is unparalleled. Last year he broke his previous record for number of winners at the meeting when amassing 19 – nearly half the total races. Previous to that he’d recorded 18 winners in 2018, when he came close to going through the card on day two with six victories.

Only once has he not reached double figures for the week in the last ten years (nine in 2017), while you have to go back to May 1 2014 to find the last day he had a blank.

His figures are astonishing, and it’s because his horses are actually peaking in the spring when many other yards are on the way down. It just reinforces the strength in depth at Closutton.

The Mullins factor helps narrow down the search for winners, but it’s pretty difficult after that. However, British raiders have had a pretty good record down the years, and interestingly that is still the case, with the Irish handicapper remaining a generous host.

Last season British runners recorded two wins, a second and a third from just ten runners in the handicaps, while in 2021 they also had two winners in those races, actually matching Britain’s total in the Cheltenham handicaps the previous month.

Three British trainers you should look out for in particular are Harry Fry, Anthony Honeyball and Philip Hobbs.

In the last five seasons, Fry has recorded two winners and three places from 15 runners at Punchestown, while Honeyball has had two winners and a place from just seven runners in that period.

Hobbs has had as many as 46 runners going back to 2008, with nine wins and nine places – an impressive strike-rate of 39 per cent.

Nicky Henderson also remains a force on his forarys here. The master of Seven Barrows has had 27 winners at the meeting, including four in 2011. His Marie’s Rock was another Cheltenham winner to follow up last season, winning the Mares Champion

Hurdle.