Dublin Racing Festival reflections
If there are zones, and if racehorses have them, you could tell from early that Majborough was in one.
The Martinborough gelding eyed up the second fence in the Dublin Chase, one of the highlights of last weekend’s eponymous racing festival at Leopardstown, and he was off, attacked the fence, landed in front and didn’t see a rival thereafter.
That wasn’t new. Willie Mullins’ horse usually attacks his fences. But there was an accuracy and a consistency and an assuredness about Majborough’s jumping on Sunday that was a step up on anything that he had done before.
The cheekpieces were new too, and perhaps therein lay the key. Perhaps the new accessories helped him to concentrate at his fences, because he appeared to meet every single one of them in his stride. And he was straight. Not out to his left. Also new.
His trainer told us afterwards that the cheekpieces were rider Mark Walsh’s idea. Fit the cheekpieces and let him jump and run, and that’s what his rider did. Majborough ran quickly too, he led from early and he maintained the gallop. He was over a second and a half faster than his fastest rival through the final furlong of the race.
This was JP McManus’ horse’s first win of the season, his first win out of novice company, and it was a career-best performance. The 2024 Triumph Hurdle winner, and only just beaten in last year’s Arkle after he made a significant mistake at the second last fence, it is understandable that he is now clear favourite for this year’s Queen Mother Champion Chase.
He had the title holder Marine Nationale 19 lengths behind him in second place on Sunday, but you can easily argue that Barry Connell’s horse will make up at least some of the deficit at Cheltenham next month. The ground was softer than ideal at Leopardstown for the French Navy gelding, and he showed his class and his determination to get up for second place in front of Found A Fifty. He was imperious in winning the Champion Chase last year and, two for two at Cheltenham, he will be much better on the better ground that he should get there next month.
Majborough’s performance was one of the highs on a weekend of many highs at Leopardstown last week. The first high was that the weekend went ahead at all, an outcome that looked odds-against earlier in the week when a significant portion of the back straight was submerged.
It wasn’t ideal that the ‘weekend’ had to be effectively moved back a day, but the Leopardstown team made many correct calls in difficult circumstances. Sunday went ahead as planned, but Saturday’s card was moved to Monday. Saturday was a sell-out, so there was obviously a financial hit to be suffered when the day was cancelled.
But Sunday’s attendance of just over 18,000 was nearly at capacity too, and half-price admission on Monday, allied to the relatively new bank holiday – a happy coincidence – helped to swell Monday’s crowd to over 10,000. And that was for a racing day that wasn’t a racing day just 72 hours earlier.
Of course, the quality of the racing was at the core of the weekend. Fact To File was brilliant in the Irish Gold Cup on Monday. He jumped his way into the lead at the fourth last fence, and he stayed on strongly from there for Mark Walsh, over the last and up the run-in to beat Gaelic Warrior by five lengths, thereby reversing places with his stable companion from their running in the John Durkan Chase in November.
This victory presents a conundrum now for owner JP McManus, because Fact To File does not hold an entry in the Cheltenham Gold Cup as things stand. Before Monday’s race, it looked like the Poliglote gelding’s optimum trip was around two and a half miles, maybe two miles and five or six furlongs. He put up one of the most memorable performances of last season in winning the Ryanair Chase over that distance last March, and he was even tried in the Champion Chase at Punchestown last April over two miles.
But he wasn’t stopping at the end of the extended three-mile trip on Monday, and that gives him every chance of staying the three-mile-two-and-a-half-furlong trip of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. There will be the option to pay the supplementary fee to put him into the race the week beforehand, and there is precedent there. JP McManus supplemented last year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Inothewayurthinkin to the race after he had stayed on to finish fourth in the Irish Gold Cup.
It's a happy conundrum.
It was a fantastic weekend for rider Mark Walsh and owner JP McManus, who teamed up for four Grade 1 victories, Kaid D’Authie in the Ladbrokes Novice Chase and Narciso Has in the Spring Juvenile Hurdle as well as Fact To File and Majborough. Willie Mullins trained all four, and the champion trainer added a fifth Grade 1 win when Paul Townend drove Doctor Steinberg to victory in the Nathaniel Lacy Novice Hurdle.
Two of the other three Grade 1 races went to Jack Kennedy and Gordon Elliott, who equalled Willie Mullins’ five winners in total for the weekend. Romeo Coolio just got home by a neck from Kargese in a thrilling finish to the Goffs Irish Arkle. The Kayf Tara gelding remains unbeaten over fences, and he has now won three Grade 1 chases, but he needs every yard of the two-mile-one-furlong trip at Leopardstown, and he is better over further. There is no Grade 1 novices’ chase over two and a half miles at the Cheltenham Festival any more, so it will probably be the Arkle over two miles for him, or the Brown Advisory Chase over an extended three.
Brighterdaysahead exacted her revenge on old rival Lossiemouth in the Irish Champion Hurdle on Sunday. It was an intriguing race to watch, Jack Kennedy kicking on early on Brighterdaysahead, Lossiemouth setting out after her, in a reversal of their respective roles from the December Hurdle at Christmas. It’s straight to the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham now with Brighterdaysahead, and it may be that Lossiemouth will go to the Mares’ Hurdle again, when she could bid to complete a hat-trick in the race.
The other Grade 1 race, the Tattersalls Ireland Novice Hurdle, went to the Joseph O’Brien-trained Talk The Talk, who did well to quicken up as well as he did for JJ Slevin off a sedate pace and just get up on the line to win by a short head. It’s the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham next for Simon Munir and Isaac Souede’s horse, and his potent turn of foot will be a big asset in that race, the Cheltenham Festival curtain-raiser, four weeks from Tuesday.
© The Sunday Times, 8th February 2026
Back