With the Punchestown festivities set to get underway tomorrow afternoon, our resident horse tipster Johnny Ward joined Ger in studio on OTB AM today to take us through his tips and how he sees the Gordon Elliott and Willie Mullins rivalry rumble on this week.
As Ger posed the question on whether or not he saw the top trainer accolade going to Elliot, Johnny was sure the decision wasn’t a foregone conclusion.
“No, no, no, no, definitely not.
“One bookmakers this morning is 4/6 that Willie Mullins will win more than Gordon every day.
“So that means he’ll have to win more than four quarter of a million [euro] races and the first one of those...is on Tuesday, where Douvan and Min could conceivably finish first and second, which itself would be two-hundred grand.
“Willie last year won it with a bit to spare despite narrowly losing out in two of the big races, he still won it with a bit to spare and he had about four-hundred grand to find.
“The really interesting aspect of this is Samcro, who’s a novice, I think will run against the senior hurdlers to potentially deny Willie winning one of those two-hundred-and-fifty grand races and to swing it to Gordon.”
While on the show, Ward also shared his main fancies for the week ahead, with a particular focus on Friday’s prized Champion Hurdle.
“I think Samcro’s 5/2 [as of Monday morning] to win on Friday, he’s 5/2 because people don’t think he’ll run in the race, I think he will.
“I think he will run in the race and he’ll go off odds-on, if not favourite.
“A little treble maybe with Penhill, Samcro and Footpad to win the two-mile novice race will pay around 7,8,9/1, something like that, but Samcro at 5/2 at the moment, this is a slight long-term bet, he’s only running on Friday.
“Samcro will win I think if he runs in the race.
“If you’re struggling by Friday, hopefully Samcro will get you over the line.”
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