EDWARD O’GRADY and Philip Carberry aim to join an exclusive roll-of-honour at Auteuil today when Jumbo Rio lines up for the French Champion Hurdle.
Just three Irish-trained horses have ever won the €370,000 Grande Course de Haies D’Auteuil – Dawn Run (1984), Nobody Told Me 2003) and Rule Supreme (2004) – and Jumbo Rio faces a major task against the reigning champion Questarabad.
The French star beat Jumbo Rio by three lengths in a Grade Two at the Paris track in April and O’Grady’s runner is now 3lbs worse off. It will also be Jumbo Rio’s first race over three miles plus.
Only nine runners line up for the race but they include Mandali, who will be ridden by the top international flat jockey Christophe Soumillon.
This weekend’s home feature is today’s €70,000 Specsavers Ulster Derby at Down Royal where the sole three-year-old Ghetto Gospel can continue his rapid rate of progress.
Ger Lyons’s horse has won his last four, starting off a mark of 50 at Navan in April and winning last time at the same track off 78. Now he is on 90 but his last win was possibly his easiest and three-year- olds have won three of the last four renewals of the Down Royal feature.
