Punchestown Festival 2025: Top Tips for Day 1
Willie Mullins’ Kopek Des Bordes cannot be opposed at Punchestown on Tuesday, but his Fact To File and Ballyburn have questions to answer.
The tapes will go up on the 2025 Punchestown Festival at 2.30 pm on Tuesday. An exciting Cross Country Chase starts proceedings. While jockeys may need a map and compass to navigate the three-mile course, punters would do well to find this race’s winner with a search warrant!
With a second Festival victory on the cards, the Kopek Des Bordes fan club is likely to be celebrating again on Tuesday. ©Getty
One hundred twenty-four runners across the day’s eight races – with three contests boasting 20 or more runners – means finding winners at horse racing betting sites will be no easy task. Nevertheless, Supreme Novices’ Hurdle winner Kopek Des Bordes appears to be a ‘penalty kick’ in the 4.15 pm contest. Sadly, he is priced accordingly.
Key Facts:
- Kopek Des Bordes’s penalty kick in Champion Novice Hurdle.
- Lecky Watson can confirm his superiority over Ballyburn.
- Marine Nationale could have Fact To File all at sea.
- Lark In The Mornin can keep Joseph O’Brien’s profits up.
Proven Improving and Likeable Lecky Watson
The Willie Mullins Grade-1 warehouse provides five of the nine runners in the Champion Novice Chase due off at 4.50 pm. On prices, Ballyburn appears to be the best of the trainer’s representatives. However, with odds hovering around 11/8 at the best betting sites, he is no bargain buy.
In fact, unproven over three miles and arriving at Punchestown on the back of a Cheltenham Festival performance that was strewn with jumping errors – crossing the line ahead of just one rival despite his 4/7 starting price – Ballyburn could be one to lay.
Preference is for stablemate Lecky Watson, who claimed Ballyburn’s scalp when winning Cheltenham’s Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase. The seven-year-old’s four-length success at Prestbury Park took his chase record to three-from-three. Considering that he never won a bumper race in five attempts, Lecky Watson appears to be an improving horse.
Fact To File Could Be All at Sea
Described as a 2026 “Gold Cup horse” by his trainer, it is surprising Willie Mullins has chosen to drop Fact To File back to two miles to contest the 6.00 pm, The William Hill Champion Chase. His judgement must be respected, but Marine Nationale appears to be a better bet at the prices.
A two-mile specialist, twice successful at the Cheltenham Festival and possibly at his best during the spring months, Marine Nationale might be able to outpace Fact To File in the dash to the line.
It is a theory supported by the fact that a small field of six runners indicates this contest will not be run at the fast pace that would benefit Fact To File. Furthermore, Mullins’ second runner in the contest, El Fabiolo, has become a haphazard jumper who has been beaten in his last five starts despite starting odds-on three times.
Lark to Keep the Profits Up
Joseph O’Brien’s 2024/25 record in Irish jumps races has been remarkable. A winner-to-runner ratio of 22 percent (38 winners from 174 runners) is impressive in itself. However, it is his £/€81.4 profit on a level £/€1 stake placed on all runners that stands out. The figures breakdown as follows:
- Hurdlers: £/€17.79 profit
- Chasers: £/€51.88 profit
- Bumper runners: £/€11.70 profit
The key to these outstanding figures is big-priced winners, which directs us to Lark In The Mornin in the Killashee Hotel Handicap Hurdle due off at 3.40 pm. The youngest runner in the 17-runner field, this German-bred won on the flat over a mile as a juvenile on his racecourse debut.
He next visited the winner’s enclosure when landing the 22-runner Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle at the 2024 Cheltenham Festival. Three subsequent runs have been relatively ‘quiet’, suggesting a big day is on the horizon. Could this be it? For small stakes, Lark In The Mornin is certainly worth an interest.
Punchestown Day 1 Best Bets
- 4.50 pm – Lecky Watson
- 6.00 pm – Marine Nationale
- 3.40 pm – Lark In The Mornin
Our 2025 Punchestown Festival Preview provides full details of this week’s dozen Grade-1 races and how to watch and bet on them.
