AMATEUR BRIAN O’Connell will remain on board the Weatherbys Champion Bumper favourite Dunguib when the Philip Fenton-trained horse attempts to defy a hugely powerful Willie Mullins squad at Cheltenham in 20 days.
Mullins is as low as 4 to 7 to win the Grade One race again with one of a bumper team that even the champion trainer admits is unprecedented in its strength.
However, one of the few non-Mullins-trained contenders at the top of the individual betting is Dunguib, who was a spectacular, 13-length winner of a Grade Two at Navan last December and who has two wins from three starts overall.
With the Cheltenham race open to professional jockeys, both flat and national hunt, the ride on Dunguib would have been a cherished one, except that Fenton yesterday confirmed that O’Connell will retain the ride on the six-year-old.
The Limerick-born jockey has ridden the horse in all of his three starts.
“Brian knows him well, he rides him out every day and he is a very good rider, full stop,” Fenton said. “He would hold his own against most professionals and he will be going down that route himself soon anyway. We are happy to use him.”
Dunguib hasn’t run since December, but Fenton intends to give him one racecourse gallop before the festival and is happy with his condition.
“He is in very good form and everything’s good so far,” he said, before pointing to the unprecedented bumper dominance of Mullins in Ireland this season.
“Willie has so many of them, maybe 10 good horses, but trainers like Noel (Meade), who usually have good bumper horses, have been fairly quiet. But Paul Nolan’s horse (Shinrock Paddy) looks pretty good too.”
“Our horse has got very strong since his last race,” Fenton added. “He’s six and he has been trained for Cheltenham. All these things should stand to him.”
In other Cheltenham news, Christy Roche is hopeful Tony McCoy will be on board his Grade One winner Lethal Weapon in the Triumph Hurdle, and the Curragh trainer won’t be afraid of good ground.
“He is in good nick and he seems to go on any ground. He hasn’t won on decent going for me, but all the reports tell me he will be better for it,” Roche said.
“Hopefully Tony McCoy rides and he goes to Cheltenham with a chance. Whether the Irish juvenile form is as good as the English is questionable, but we will find out on the day.
“It was always the plan to give him a break before Cheltenham, but luckily he hasn’t missed much work with all the bad weather we had,” Roche added.
Timmy Murphy will team up with the former Powers Gold Cup winner Conna Castle in Saturday’s Racing Post Chase at Kempton, and Cork trainer Jimmy Mangan is hopeful of a good effort.
“He had been quite disappointing this season but we were very happy with his run in the Thyestes and we think we have him right now,” Mangan said.
“We found one or two problems with his back earlier in the season, which is why he hadn’t been jumping that good, but he was super at Gowran.”
Denis O’Regan had been booked to ride, but suspension means he has to give way to Timmy Murphy.
“Denis was ready to ride him, but he didn’t realise he was banned.
“Luckily enough Howard Johnson rang to let me know in good time, so we have managed to get Timmy. He’s certainly not a bad substitute and the horse hopefully will have a big each way chance.
“The ground was bottomless the last day, so hopefully he will have good ground at the weekend. If the top couple of horses stay in he should get in off a nice weight. He is on 10st 6lb at the moment which would be grand.”
