Willie Mullins to make call on headgear for Don Poli

The question of whether or not Don Cossack wears cheek-pieces in the Timico Cheltenham Gold Cup could come down to ground conditions at the National Hunt extravaganza.

But whether Michael O'Leary's other prime 'blue-riband' contender Don Poli carries some sort of headgear will be one of many pre-festival calls to be made by Willie Mullins.

The 'Dons' are among a handful of Gold Cup contenders carrying the colours of O'Leary's Gigginstown Stud and should both make it to the festival centrepiece it will free up others for the previous day's Ryanair Chase which their owner sponsors.

O’Leary’s brother, and bloodstock adviser, Eddie O’Leary, has stressed running plans for most of Gigginstown’s massive festival team won’t be finalised until as late as possible.

But he indicated a clear run-in to Cheltenham could see both Road To Riches and Valseur Lido diverted from the Gold Cup to the Ryanair.

Road To Riches is currently as low as 7-2 for the Ryanair, with Valseur Lido a 5-1 shot.

O’Leary said: “I’d like to think at least one of those will run in the Ryanair. The two Dons are ahead of them in the Gold Cup betting while Road To Riches and Valseur Lido are high up in the other race and we’d obviously love to support, and win, the Ryanair.

“I think we’d be far better off on a Thursday evening, having won the Ryanair, wondering should we have gone for the Gold Cup. The Ryanair would still have been won. And if you can’t win that, then you certainly won’t win a Gold Cup.”

Bare form

Don Poli is the outsider of the Irish-trained quartet dominating the top of the Gold Cup betting on the back of a narrow and hard-fought Lexus Chase success at Christmas which left many unimpressed in bare form terms.

Others though put it down as yet another example of the horse’s habit of racing lazily and doing just enough to win.

The potential benefits of headgear, either blinkers, a visor or cheek-pieces, have been mooted for the notoriously laid-back dual festival winner but O’Leary insisted any such decision would be Willie Mullins’s, and perhaps come down to the champion trainer’s willingness to alter his usual habits.

“Willie doesn’t use headgear normally but it is completely up to him. In theory it would be a big help to the jockey with this horse. But Willie knows the horse well and had him bouncing at Cheltenham last year. I’m sure he’ll have him ready to run for his life again. It’s all up to Willie,” he said.

“What we want at this time of year is to hear nothing. If you don’t get a phone call then nothing has gone wrong.

“You only have to see what happened last week with Faugheen. So from everyone’s point of view, ours, Bryan’s (Cooper,) Willie’s, and everyone else’s, there’s no point finalising anything until we have to. There’s three weeks to go but in terms of what might go wrong it could be three months,” O’Leary added.

One definite Gigginstown plan however is that Alpha Des Obeaux will lead his owner’s assault on the newly-titled Ryanair World Hurdle on Day 3 of the festival.

Forgotten horse

“That race has been Alpha Des Obeaux’s target since he came in this season,” Eddie O’Leary confirmed.

“Lieutenant Colonel is something of a forgotten horse for that race but he ran very well on his first race back at Navan.”

In other news, the in-form Co Wexford trainer Colm Murphy is looking forward to giving his new Grade One recruit Sizing Granite a first start in the Queen Mother Champion Chase.

Last season's top-flight Maghull Novices Chase winner at Aintree was moved from Henry De Bromhead's yard by owners Ann and Alan Potts after Christmas and is a 33-1 shot for the two-mile championship that Murphy won in 2010 with Big Zeb.

“He seems well and seems a really nice horse. I’d imagine he’ll probably go straight to Cheltenham. It’s all systems go,” said.

“I’d imagine he’ll go to Leopardstown for a racecourse gallop. He seems to go well fresh, so we won’t be doing a whole lot with him. He’s just been ticking over and he’s done well so far,” Murphy added.

Murphy also trained Big Zeb to finish runner-up to the Potts -owned Sizing Europe in the 2011 Champion Chase at the festival.