When even bookmakers are split on who’s favourite to be crowned Ireland’s champion jockey on Saturday, it underlines how delicately poised the title race is between Paul Townend and Jack Kennedy.
Townend trails his rival by seven winners (122-115) ahead of Tuesday’s start to the Punchestown Festival. It’s a lead big enough to make Kennedy an odds-on favourite with Ladbrokes although Townend enjoys similar status with other firms in the expectation of a Willie Mullins bonanza this week.
Townend rode 11 winners at last year’s festival as he secured champion status for a sixth time. Making it seven would put a seal on one of the all-time great seasons by any rider.
Pulling off jump racing’s triple crown of Champion Hurdle, Gold Cup and Grand National — the first rider to do it since Tommy Cullinan in 1930 — has cemented Townend’s status as one of the leading jockeys of the modern era.
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That Kennedy was runner-up to the Cork man in all three races will mean the 25-year-old from Dingle won’t lack motivation to maintain his advantage this week and secure a maiden championship.
Kennedy’s handful of rides on Tuesday is one more than Townend in quantity although the quality balance could favour the latter, a pattern that may continue for the week.
Both are looking to upset the odds in both the William Hill Champion Chase and the Grade One KPMG Novice Hurdle where Henry De Bromhead’s Cheltenham Supreme winner Slade Steel may prove a class above.
However, Townend might strike at the top level in the later Dooley Insurance Champion Novice Chase aboard Embassy Gardens.
He is on a retrieval mission having blown his lines at Cheltenham behind the runaway winner Corbetts Cross in the National Hunt Chase. A blunder at the second last sealed the outcome but Embassy Gardens never looked happy and was found to have an irregular heartbeat afterwards.
In contrast Monty’s Star was an admirable runner up to Fact To File at Cheltenham. He and Embassy Gardens, as well as the Fairyhouse Grade One winner Spillane’s Tower, are officially rated the same although they are only joint third-rated on official figures.
It makes for an intriguing and competitive contest where Embassy Gardens could prove his Cheltenham effort all wrong.
In other news, City Of Troy is set to meet his date with destiny in Saturday’s Qipco 2000 Guineas at Newmarket.
The colt acclaimed by Aidan O’Brien’s Ballydoyle team as “our Frankel” after Dewhurst Stakes success on the Rowley Mile in October is a 4-6 favourite for the first classic of 2024 after 14 were left in the Guineas at Monday’s latest acceptance stage.
O’Brien has also left the trio of Diego Velazquez, Henry Longfellow and River Tiber in the mile classic which he has won 10 times before. The last of them was Magna Grecia in 2019.
City Of Troy’s principal opposition is set to come from Richard Hannon’s Prix Jean Luc Lagadere winner Rosallion. His stable companion Haatem, winner of the Craven Stakes, is also in the mix. Godolphin will be represented solely by Notable Speech.
