HEARTBREAK City, the clear ante-post favourite, has been declared in a field of 23 runners for the Coral Hurdle at Leopardstown on Sunday.
He is one of four horses declared to run by Tony Martin who will also be represented by Golden Spear, Gladiator King and Tudor City.
Coral’s €100,000 bonus for the connections of any horse that wins both the Coral.ie Hurdle and the Coral Cup at Cheltenham this year is a massive incentive and Martin was the last trainer to achieve this big race double with Xenophon back in 2003 and is attempting to achieve the elusive feat again this season.
A winner on his last start over hurdles at the Galway Festival in July, Heartbreak City has since won the Ebor Handicap at York and went so close as runner-up to Almandin in the Melbourne Cup at Flemington in November.
Top-weight for this €100,000 race will be the Shark Hanlon-trained Hidden Cyclone, the mount of the season’s leading conditional rider Rachael Blackmore.
Gordon Elliott is set to rely on Veinard but champion trainer Willie Mullins is another with four runners, with Thomas Hobson and Allblak Des Places heading his challenge.
Leading fancies That’s A Wrap, trained by Tom Mullins, who is another trainer with a quartet to saddle.
Three trainers, between them responsible for over half the field.
Shay Barry’s After Rain, one of JP McManus’s five runners, has a bright chance after his Christmas third here behind That’s A Wrap and Veinard also been declared while Ice Cloud Soul and De Name Escapes Me, both trained by Noel Meade are another interesting pair.
Veinard, upped 5lb for Christmas effort is the only runner in the lineup for Gordon Elliott and might be the main threat to Heartbreak City, but it isn’t often that a 118-rated Melbourne Cup runner-up is given an opportunity to run in a handicap hurdle off a mark just 7lb off the bottom.
The Coral.ie Leopardstown Handicap Chase has attracted a final field of 19 runners with Gordon Elliott’s Clarcam heading the weights and doing a 10lb compression job.
In all, the season’s leading trainer fields a team of seven including A Toi Phil and Space Cadet. As in the featured hurdle, Willie Mullins runs four horses, Tennis Cap, The Paparrazi Kid, Rolly Baby and New Kid In Town.
Also set to line up are leading early fancies Stellar Notion, trained by Henry de Bromhead and Jim Culloty’s Christmas winner here, Lake Takapuna.
This race is plenty difficult enough but Stellar Notion advanced his claim to serious consideration here over Christmas with his fourth here behind Noble Endeavour.
Upped 2lb for that effort but with 2lb less to shoulder, he should go well now with none of those that finished ahead of him that day liningup to re-oppose.
Killer Crow and A Toi Phil are the most dangerous looking of the Elliott team.
The Grade Three novice chase will see just six runners face the starter with the Willie Mullins-trained Yorkhill certainly the one to beat.
He was a facile winner on is chase debut at Fairyhouse in mid-December and the leading challengers appear to be Henry de Bromhead’s Gangster and Anibale Fly, trained by Tony Martin.
