Sunday View: Sunday February 15<\/p>\n
1pt win Lucky Lyreen in the 14:30 Punchestown at 13\/2 (William Hill, 6\/1 General)<\/p>\n
1pt win Bold Light in the 16:20 Musselburgh at 12\/1 (bet365, Paddy Power)<\/p>\n
Sky Bet odds<\/a> | Paddy Power<\/a> | Betfair Sportsbook<\/a><\/p>\n The ground is set to be testing at Punchestown and that will mean the 1xbet.ie Grand National Trial Handicap Chase will be a thorough test of stamina.<\/p>\n It is a race that Gordon Elliott has farmed over the last eight years, winning the race six times in that period, and he\u2019s now chasing his fifth straight win. Last year\u2019s winner, Fortunedefortunata, returns to defend his crown, but he\u2019s totally out of form at present, and of Elliott\u2019s six runners, it is LUCKY LYREEN who has the right sort of profile for this test. <\/p>\n He only made his debut over fences in November, beaten a street by Final Demand at Navan, and he was never involved in another deep race at Fairyhouse just 13 days later.<\/p>\n Lucky Lyreen was again well beaten on his qualifying run in a race with plenty of above-average sorts on New Year\u2019s Day, but he was much shorter in the betting for his handicap debut upped to three miles at Down Royal last month, and he duly showed much improved form.<\/p>\n He had allotted a mark 16lb lower than his peak hurdles rating and very much took advantage fitted with first-time cheekpieces, overcoming some adversity when shuffled back towards the latter half of the race, but soon back in contention jumping three from home, and he entered the lead between the final two fences. <\/p>\n From there Lucky Lyreen displayed a tremendous attitude, holding on grimly close home from another well handicapped and reopposing Born Braver, with the pair pulling 26 lengths clear of the third. <\/p>\n The latter is weighted to reverse the form, especially with a conditional rider taking off a further 5lb, but that was just Lucky Lyreen\u2019s fourth start over fences, and the suspicion is he remains some way ahead of his mark following an 8lb rise in the weights.<\/p>\n Furthermore, he\u2019s sure to relish this longer trip, as he shapes like a dour stayer, and based on his exploits over hurdles, he remains with plenty of scope to improve further in this sphere. <\/p>\n The ground at Musselburgh won\u2019t be as bad \u2013 described as soft, good to soft in places at the time of writing \u2013 and the one race which interests me on the card is the Famous Five Handicap Chase.<\/p>\n The Harry Derham-trained Jus de Citron is the least exposed in the field and is sure to be popular following his promising debut over fences at Newcastle last month, but there was also promise to glean from BOLD LIGHT\u2019s chase debut at this course a fortnight ago.<\/p>\n He enjoyed a good time of it over hurdles last season, winning three times, including at this course and a handicap at Kelso from a BHA mark of 123. Bold Light didn\u2019t offer much in that sphere in three starts this campaign, but he took well to chasing at the first time of asking in what was a stronger race than this.<\/p>\n I thought Bold Light shaped quite a bit better than the bare result on that occasion, given a patient ride from the outset in a race where the winner made all of the running and the remainder finished in the order they were positioned throughout. <\/p>\n He briefly looked like getting into contention in the straight, his jockey not going for everything and seemingly still travelling well, but he hit the second-last and that halted his momentum. <\/p>\n Bold Light wasn\u2019t really given a hard time from there, having nothing left to give and just allowed to come home in his own time. It\u2019s worth noting that his yard are showing signs of turning a corner after a below-average season so far \u2013 they had three winners at Kelso on Friday \u2013 and Bold Light looks potentially well treated having been dropped a further 2lb. I was surprised to see him at a double-figure price in this lesser race and he\u2019s worth chancing to progress from his debut in this sphere. <\/p>\n Preview posted at 1620 GMT on 14\/02\/2026<\/p>\n Safer gambling<\/p>\n We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.<\/p>\n If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline \/ GamCare<\/a> on 0808 8020 133.<\/p>\n Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org<\/a> and gamblingtherapy.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunday View: Sunday February 15 1pt win Lucky Lyreen in the 14:30 Punchestown at 13\/2 (William Hill, 6\/1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-298992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}