There is just a week to go until the Irish National Hunt Festival gets underway at Punchestown on Tuesday, April 24, and an outstanding five days' racing are in prospect.
Cheshire trainer Donald McCain today revealed that Overturn, runner-up in this season's Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, is set to travel over to Punchestown for the Grade One Rabobank Champion Hurdle next Friday (April 27) when he will take on the brilliant Hurricane Fly, winner of the two-mile showpiece for the past two years.
Overturn has been in tremendous form this season, bagging his first Grade One win in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle in November prior to placed efforts in the International Hurdle at Cheltenham, Christmas Hurdle at Kempton and Champion Hurdle last time out.
“We are looking at the Rabobank Champion Hurdle with Overturn,” McCain revealed today. “He has been fine since Cheltenham and is working away nicely. We purposely skipped Aintree to go to Punchestown and providing the ground is OK he will run.”
Other possibles for the Ireland's hurdling showpiece include last year's runner-up and Hurricane Fly's stablemate, Thousand Stars, who was narrowly beaten into second in Saturday's Grade One Aintree Hurdle at Liverpool.
The Noel Meade-trained Go Native, who has not been seen since being sent off favourite for the 2010 Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, could make his eagerly-awaited reappearance in the Rabobank Champion Hurdle while Dermot Weld could run the high-class mare Unaccompanied.
