RACING:THE RUN up to Christmas looks like turning into a racing white-out but the authorities at Leopardstown are "very optimistic" that their prestigious festive action will go ahead on St Stephen's Day which is good news for champion trainer Willie Mullins.

Yesterday Mullins outlined how stable stars such as the Champion Hurdle favourite Hurricane Fly could appear during the four-day festival and that will be a welcome bulletin for race fans largely starved of racing action.

Yesterday’s cards at Navan and Thurles were cancelled in the morning, as was today’s scheduled Punchestown action which was called off due to minus 10 overnight temperatures and a cover of snow.

The Turf Club also ruled out any chance of rescheduling those lost fixtures as the forecast for this week shows no sign of a thaw. However, Leopardstown are hoping the weather will relent in time for their Christmas festival to go ahead this Sunday.

“We will do all we can to race and with the forecast we are very optimistic everything will go ahead as planned,” the Leopardstown manager Tom Burke said yesterday. “It looks like we will have soft ground at worst at this stage.”

He added: “There’s a light dusting of snow on the track today and there are bits of snow forecast as well but nothing serious from Tuesday. It is to stay cold but the forecast is telling us there will be a rise in temperatures on Christmas Eve. And by the 26th, it could be anything up to 10 degrees.

“Of course it is hard to be accurate after four or five days, and there are fluctuations, so we will be monitoring things on a daily basis.”

Gowran Park is still due to race on Wednesday but the track was frozen and unfit to race yesterday and conditions there will also continue to be monitored. Gowran is Willie Mullins’s local track but his focus is increasingly on the Christmas action which could see him give stars such as Hurricane Fly and Mikael d’Haguenet quick reappearances having run at Fairyhouse last Wednesday.

He gave both horses clean bills of health yesterday and revealed he hopes to give Hurricane Fly at least two more runs before aiming at Cheltenham’s Champion Hurdle for which the ex-French star is currently a 4 to 1 co-favourite in ante-post betting.

The December Festival Hurdle on Day Four of Leopardstown’s upcoming holiday festival is an immediate option and Mullins said: “We are looking at Leopardstown and then we’ll take it from there. I would hope to get two runs into him at least before Cheltenham.”

Mikael d’Haguenet fell at the last in last week’s Drinmore when alongside the eventual winner Jessies Dream and also remains a Christmas possible.

“He is in the two mile on St Stephen’s Day (Bord Na Mona Novice Chase) and the three miler (Fort Leney Chase) later in the week. Or we could give him another week and run in a Beginners Chase or a Graded chase. We will see how he continues to come out of last Wednesday’s race,” Mullins said.

“When they are off for so long you can never be sure they will come back again but he looks to have retained at least most of his ability,” he added. “Who knows who might have won had he stood up. But we had Jessies Dream here and we know what he can do under pressure. He is a really good horse.”

Kempes and Cooldine also ran at Fairyhouse last Wednesday in the John Durkan Chase behind Tranquil Sea and both horses have the Lexus Chase as options.

“It’s a bit soon for horses that ran at Fairyhouse but you have to go where the races are,” Mullins reported.

“The Durkan was a starting point for Cooldine. That’s all it ever was. You’d like to win it but at two and a half miles, faster horses were always going to outspeed him.”

Quel Esprit could end up flying the Mullins flag in Limerick’s Christmas Grade Two novice chase on St Stephen’s Day having won his first chase at the track.

“It’s something I like, horses going back to where they’ve won before, and there’s a nice novice chase there for him. He is a horse I’ve always liked. He was a bit disappointing towards the end of last season but hopefully he’ll make up for that over fences,” he added.

Quel Espirt’s winning form last month was boosted by the runner-up Torpichen scoring subsequently at Clonmel four days ago.