Dooleys Insurance Novice Chase (Tuesday)

The DOOLEYS INSURANCE GROUP CHAMPION NOVICE CHASE has attracted 17 entries. Lecky Watson heads the Mullins team of nine, after his brilliant victory in the Brown Advisory Chase at Cheltenham, with stablemate Ballyburn likely to be given a chance to prove his disappointment was an aberration. Champ Kiely, Dancing City and Ile Atlantique are other possible Mullins contestants.

The Ken Budds-trained Anyway chased home Caldwell Potter in the Grade 2 Jack Richards Novices’ Handicap Chase at Cheltenham and that form was franked when the winner registered a very impressive Grade 1 triumph at Aintree. Anyway could be ready to go to another level, while the Gordon Elliott duo Better Days Ahead and Stellar Story, and Henry de Bromhead’s duo, Slade Steel and Gorgeous Tom are others of note.

British trainer, Polly Gundry has entered Don’t Rightly Know while the Bowe family might be tempted to run impressive beginners’ chase winner Linden Arden, trained by Philip Fenton.

Gavin Cromwell could saddle Bioluminescence, a Grade 2 mares’ novice chase winner who ran a blinder behind Dancing City in Naas before chasing home Spindleberry at Fairyhouse in February.

“Bioluminescence is very ground-dependent,” warns Cromwell, however. “She’s entered in the Irish Grand National as well. She’s in great form and we’d love to be running her but while the ground isn’t as important at the three-mile trip, she loves soft ground.

“They always do a good job at Punchestown and I know they are watering. As far as I can tell too, after every dry spell comes a wet spell, so we’re a long way away yet and you wouldn’t know what might happen with the weather and we’ll just have to wait and see.”