Champion jockey Jack Kennedy is as low as 7-1 to seal his latest injury comeback by being crowned leading rider at the upcoming Cheltenham Festival.
It was confirmed on Friday the 25-year-old has got a green light to return to the saddle at Leopardstown on Monday, eight days before the start of the biggest racing week of the year.
Kennedy has been out of action since the end of November after suffering the sixth broken leg of his hugely successful but injury-blighted career following a fall at Fairyhouse.
A previous leg-break meant he missed Cheltenham in 2023. But the man who broke his festival duck as a 17-year-old on Labaik in 2017 looks to have timed his return perfectly.
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“I feel fitter than I’ve ever been coming back from an injury. That’s a massive help but obviously you have to ride in a few races just to blow out the cobwebs and to get the lungs opened up again. But I’m definitely fitter than I’ve ever been coming back,” Kennedy reported.
It’s good news for Gordon Elliott whose massive festival team Kennedy will have first pick of, including star mare Brighterdaysahead who may take on Constitution Hill in the Champion Hurdle. The Mares race is an alternative target with a decision on which option she will take up expected soon. Teahupoo is also favourite to retain his Stayers Hurdle crown.
“Brighterdaysahead in whatever race she goes for, she’s very exciting, then I suppose Teahupoo in the Stayers’. They’re probably the two main ones,” Kennedy said.
He was non-committal on what decision he would like Brighterdaysahead’s Gigginstown Stud ownership to make.
“I suppose there are two sides of it. You’d love to win a Champion Hurdle obviously and rather win a Champion Hurdle than a Mares’ Hurdle. But if you’re coming out of there on Tuesday after having a winner in either race, whichever one you could win would be great.
“I’d love to have a Champion Hurdle on my CV, but the most important thing is winning whatever race it is. She’s probably the best chance we’ve had of a Champion Hurdle so far, but I’d be hoping for a big run in whichever race she’s in,” he added.
Kennedy’s 11 career successes at the festival are topped by Minella Indo’s Gold Cup victory in 2021. With such firepower at his disposal, betting firms cut his odds about dethroning rival Paul Townend as leading rider at Cheltenham.
Nevertheless, Townend is a red-hot favourite to be top jockey for a fourth year in a row and a fifth time in all. Townend has 34 festival wins in all.
Last season Townend completed a Champion Hurdle-Gold Cup-Grand National hat-trick with Kennedy runner up in all three races of National Hunt racing’s unofficial Triple Crown. Kennedy though emerged on top in a memorable tussle to be champion jockey in Ireland.
Townend is on duty this weekend with four rides including a single mount at Leopardstown’s Sunday fixture. Adamantly Chosen is his pick from Willie Mullins’s options in the Listed handicap chase, a steer many will note considering how much he has to look forward to in Cheltenham.
The country’s top rider also had a choice in Saturday’s Grade Two Webster Chase at Navan.
El Fabiolo and Grangeclare West would be proper Grade One festival hopes in most any other operation in the sport. Such is the strength in depth of the Mullins team though they look set to hoover up this €45,000 prize.
Grangeclare West is 16-1 in lists for the Gold Cup having belied much longer odds to chase home Galopin Des Champs at the Dublin Racing Festival. Both he and El Fabiolo hold Ryanair entries while the latter would be no back-number in the Champion Chase.
Townend has opted for El Fabiolo who only got as far as the second before exiting at the DRF. The giant gelding hasn’t kicked on from the potential he showed as a novice although this intermediate trip might allow his suspect jumping a little more rope.
Champ Kiely holds a Brown Advisory option at Cheltenham but has a Grade Three target first in the two-mile Flyingbolt Novice Chase.
A top-flight novice winner over hurdles, Champ Kiely won his chase debut on his return from a long absence before running fourth to Ballyburn at the DRF. The minimum trip looks well short of his best, but he still looks the benchmark for just four opponents to reach.
The eight-year-old Flemensface has just the fourth racecourse start of his life in a maiden hurdle on Saturday, but it could result in him making headlines for all the right reasons.
Now in the care of Eoin Griffin, the horse was unwittingly at the centre of controversy in 2023.
Eventually disqualified from a point to point for failing a drugs test, in the interim he went through the sales ring for €100,000 and wound up with the unsuspecting cross-channel trainer Lucinda Russell.
When the horse got banned from racing for 14 months by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board, Russell sent the horse back to the sales company, an episode that underlined how much of an information gap there was since at the time of purchase there had been no inkling of a drugs issue looming.
The blameless Flemensface recently ran an encouraging second to the heavy favourite Argento Boy at Punchestown last time and the third from that race has won since.
