If you want to annoy an Irishman, you should describe the Punchestown festival as 'Ireland's answer to Cheltenham'.
I've heard that many times over the years but any Irishman who knows his racing however, will quickly quip back that the Punchestown festival pre-dates Cheltenham by 75 years!
The Punchestown festival takes place in late April and is the culmination of the Irish National Hunt season. It is without doubt the biggest meeting in the Irish racing calendar. Of course, there's racing all year round too, almost exclusively National Hunt, bar a few charity flat races now and then.
Punchestown is a right-handed and undulating, and has a number of courses for hurdles, chases and flat racing. One of the most interesting courses is the cross country, where stone walls, ditches and banks are all part and parcel of the race. On the chase course, the fences are not too stiff compared to British standards, so good solid jumpers tend to do well.
Dermot Weld, Willie Mullins, Robbie Burns and Colm Murphy are all trainers worth noting here and regularly produce the winners. On the banks course, Enda Bolger is king - in fact, he's won the tricky La Touche Cup at the festival for eleven years straight, equalling the record set by Pat Hogan in the 1980s.
Ruby Walsh has a fine record at Punchestown, but in recent times, cousins Paddy and Emmet Mullins have been keeping the family tradition strong and finding themselves in the winners' enclosure on a regular basis.
Favourites have a strike-rate of just over 33% overall with bumper jollies actually showing a profit to level stakes if blindly backed.A