Who To Follow At Leopardstown On Sunday

Willie Mullins is set to have a cracking day at Leopardstown at the weekend and in the Mares Maiden Hurdle over 2m4f Royal Illusion looks a huge player.

The nine year old is fairly unexposed for age not being seen all that often and during her career has done most her work on the flat.

She has some great scalps during her career including when winning the 2019 Irish Cesarewitch at the Curragh and with that she is also a winner on the flat over 1m5f at this track.

Royal illusion has only been seen over hurdles once and it came in a Mares Maiden at Naas in December over two miles when a good third behind some smart types.

If she can handle the extra half a mile today she is a big player.

As mentioned above, we believe that Mullins could dominate this meeting on Sunday with plenty of live chances across the day, to keep up his good form ahead of the festival.

In the first race of the day he field Fly Smart for Rich Ricci, who could turn out to be another rocket French exploit, like past stablemates Douvan and Vautour.

Other big chances across the day for the Closutton maestro include aforementioned Royal Illusion and also in the bumper the unraced Dark Raven could just be anything.

Mullins has been picking up winners left, right and centre over the last few weeks and it has seen him pose a 31.82% strike rate.

Robbie Power has a nice book of rides on Sunday with his partnership with owner Robcour seeing him ride some lovely horses throughout the season and the weekend is no different.

The Gold Cup and Grand National winning jockeys best chance on the day comes from the hot favourite French Dynamite for Mouse Morris, who drops in trip for this event.

Power has been in fine form in Ireland over the last 14 days having had two winners from eight rides which sees him running at a 25% win rate.