Dublin Racing Festival preview, odds and tips
The Dublin Racing Festival arrives this weekend just in time to give racing fans a huge meeting to look forward to at the weekend, with some of the best racehorses set to grace the Leopardstown track.
And Paddy Power are offering up to £50 in free bets back if any of your first five bets lose!
It's still early entries for the Dublin Racing Festival but there are a few races that are already looking to be confirmed with a few Cheltenham Festival entries clearly making their final races before the Prestbury Park highlight.
But this festival in its own right over Saturday and Sunday is an incredible meeting with multiple Grade 1 races featuring the likes of Marine Nationale, El Fabiolo, Dinoblue, State Man, Galopin Des Champs and many more.
Marine Nationale is already many punters' bankers for this festival along with a few other odds-on prices available this weekend.
Marine Nationale has only just started his chasing career but got off to a flyer on debut here in the Christmas Festival meeting, to beat Firm Footings by over eight lengths.
He did this on the back of a superb hurdling career and is yet to be beaten, looking like one of the classiest novice chasers about currently.
Cheltenham Festival Gold Cup favourite could be hammered in further with a prominent display here.
He's just 1/2 to see off Fastorslow, who beat him at Punchestown in November and in April of last year.
But he looked back to his best last time out beating Gerri Colombe by an incredible 23 lengths in the end which was all the more impressive for the way he forged clear with ease.
As a result of that, the sceptics were well and truly silenced and he became a very short price for this Gold Cup.
He's now rated 180 and has to be the best bet of the festival as well as Cheltenham.
Grangeclare West looks a great chaser in the making for trainer Willie Mullins and has also been tipped to win the Brown Advisory at Cheltenham Festival.
He has shown incredible form over 3m, stepping up to that distance for the first time here in the Grade 1 Neville Hotels Novice Chase in the Christmas Festival, beating Corbetts Cross by six lengths.
The drop in trip will be of no concern as he's won in and around 2m5f plenty of times before, including a win at 2m4f in his chase debut at Naas where he won comfortably while being a real eyecatcher.
It's clear he's got the scope to become a great chaser and be much better over fences than he was over hurdles.
El Fabiolo is the clear odds-on favourite for the Dublin Chase, albeit with Dinoblue in tow.
But the favourite is so clear of the rest of the field by all accounts with his unbeaten streak.
He's beaten the likes of Jonbon, Dysart Dynamo and Fil Dor by quite the margin and has yet to be really challenged over fences.
The Mullins-trained horse is in incredible fettle, as are so many of his horses as the trainer's strike rate over the last two weeks stands at 46% from a total of 48 runners!
One of the few odds-on shots that are likely to go in many accas this weekend.
State Man will take on the likes of Impaire Et Passe, Bob Olinger and potentially Lossiemouth in this Champion Hurdle.
Impaire Et Passe could be the biggest threat to his win here and of course the many accas.
But he's finished second twice in a row since returning this season and could probably do with not being underestimated, as his 7/2 odds suggest.
But State Man has been incredibly consistent winning nine hurdle contests from just 12 runs, only being beaten by Constitution Hill in the UK and Ireland.
State Man was a comfortable winner last time out as well to beat Impaire Et Passe here in the Matheson Hurdle in the Leopardstown Christmas Festival and surely can't be beaten.
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