AUTHOR: Star Sports Content

DAVY RUSSELL: Leopardstown Saturday

We’re right in the middle of the festive action and I’m looking forward to my weekend rides at Leopardstown. As usual, I’ll be back on Saturday evening with thoughts on Sunday’s rides including in the Grade 1’s – Battleoverdoyen in the Neville Hotels Novice Chase and Coeur Sublime in the Matheson Hurdle.

It’s been a good start to Christmas for me with Cedarwood Road quickening up really nicely to win on St Stephen’s Day. He really looks to be going the right way now.

I switched to Limerick on Friday and won the opener aboard Argumental for Joseph (O’Brien) in a dramatic race. Later in the card Fury Road maintained his unbeaten run over hurdles by winning the Lyons Of Limerick Jaguar Land Rover Novice Hurdle. He travelled really well for me on the heavy ground but clattered the last and fortunately we had plenty up our sleeve to go on a win.

Hope you all had a nice Christmas – we had a lovely time, especially of course the kids. For once I was able to have a decent Christmas lunch as I didn’t have tough weights to make the following day!

Looking further ahead to New Year, my plans are still to be finalised but it’s more than likely I’ll be riding at Tramore or Fairyhouse rather than Cheltenham.

Now for the busy Leopardstown weekend.

SATURDAY

LEOPARDSTOWN

THE BOSSES OSCAR (12.15pm)

Made a really pleasing debut over jumps for me at Punchestown when chasing home the long odds on Blue Sari at Punchestown last month. There was just half a length between them at the line and it looks solid form – despite Blue Sari not running his race here on Friday in the Future Champions Grade 1. The danger will probably come from Willie Mullins again, this time with Jon Snow who was a winner in France on the flat and showed great promise on his hurdling debut at Cork.

THE STORYTELLER (12.50pm)

A regular friend and I was delighted to see him bounce back from an unseat in America at Far Hills to win at Clonmel earlier in the month. It’s a really competitive race though and my fella has to give plenty of away to likes of Tout Est Permis and Rock De Baune down towards the bottom of the card.

MYTH BUSTER (1.25pm)

The stable have had a great Leopardstown so far with the Grade 1 wins from Notebook and A Plus Tard but this looks a tough assignment for Myth Buster. I’ve ridden him in both his starts over fences so far and he was travelling really well for me the last day in Navan before unseating me four out. It was too early to say what would have happened but he would have certainly run a big race. The problem for us here though is that this looks a lot more competitive with Allaho bringing Grade 1 placed hurdle form to the table.

CHERIF DE L’ISLE (2.35pm)

Another massively competitive race. My fella has run two big races this season at Navan after his lengthy break and hopefully the cheekpieces fitted by Gordon (Elliott) will have a positive effect. Needs to step up to feature here as it looks tough.

PRESENTING PERCY (3.10pm Savills Chase)

I thought he ran a race full of promise in the John Durkan when third to Min who was really suited by conditions of the race. Presenting Percy never went for me in the Gold Cup, so it was really encouraging to see him back showing plenty of his old ability.

Kemboy’s form looks rock solid. The Willie Mullins trained runner is having his first start of the season having finished off the last campaign with Grade 1 wins at Aintree and Punchestown.

Good Luck
DAVY

If you have a question for Davy drop us a line at content@starsportsbet.co.uk and we’ll try and include in the next blog…

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