Peregrine Run will carry top-weight if connections choose the €200,000 Tote Galway Plate as the prolific winner's festival target on Wednesday week after the weights for both the Plate and equally lucrative Guinness Galway Hurdle were released this afternoon.
The festival will take place without the usual enthusiastic crowds next week but RTÉ2 will show live coverage of all the big races.
The 10-year-old won for the 17-time for Peter Fahey at Killarney earlier this month and has been allotted joint top-weight of 11st 10lbs alongside Jett, Jessica Harrington’s sole entry, and The Storyteller, a Grade One winning novice chaser and a Cheltenham Festival winner for Gordon Elliott.
Elliott, who has won three of the last four renewals, is responsible for nine of the 35 entries. He could also call upon the Cheltenham Festival runner-up and recent Killarney winner Galvin, Mengli Khan, who regained the winning thread over hurdles at Kilbeggan last time, and his narrow Midlands National runner-up Three Musketeers.
It has been nine years since Willie Mullins last trained the winner of the Plate and the champion trainer has made six entries, headed by Easy Game, a novice hurdle winner at the Galway Festival in 2018 who just lost out to Faugheen when second in the Grade 1 Flogas Novice Chase at the Dublin Racing Festival in February.
Blazer, runner-up in the Galway Hurdle in 2018 is also among the Mullins entry as is festival regular Robin Des Foret, Royal Rendezvous and Cabaret Queen.
Fifth in the race to Clarcam in 2018 and a winner over the same course and distance just four days later, Sub Lieutenant is one of four entries for Henry De Bromhead, successful with Balko Des Flos in 2017. His exciting novice Spyglass Hill would be an intriguing contender.
Us And Them, Mortal and Early Doors are Joseph O'Brien’s three, while Liam Cusack has his 2018 Guinness Galway Blazer winner Snugsborough Benny which returned to Ballybrit to take third place in last year’s Tote Galway Plate.
Tony Martin won the Galway Hurdle for the third time in the last six years when the John Breslin-owned Tudor City defeated Due Reward in the race 12 months ago and the pair head the entries for the 2020 renewal (also €200k) on Thursday week.
Aramaon and Petit Mouchoir top the weights at 11st 10lbs with Tudor City on 11st 2lbs.
Martin was successful with Thomas Edison in 2014 and Quick Jack, another owned by New York-based Breslin, the following year, and Tudor City could bid to become the first back-to-back winner of the Guinness Galway Hurdle since the Noel Meade-trained Pinch Hitter in 1982 and 1983.
Last year’s hero is Tony Martin’s only entry while Due Reward’s trainer Henry De Bromhead has also put dual Grade One-winning hurdler Petit Mouchoir and Moon Over Germany in the race.
Willie Mullins added to the 1996 victory of Mystical City and the success of Clondaw Warrior 20 years later, when Sharjah became his third winner of the Galway Hurdle two years ago and the champion trainer has made 13 entries this time.
With the recent Tipperary Grade 3 Aramon, Diamond Hill, twice a winner at the Galway festival and successful in the Listed Ardilaun Hotel Oyster Stakes on the Flat at Galway last September, last year’s Connacht Hotel Handicap winner Great White Shark and Foveros among his entries, the champion trainer certainly holds a strong hand.
Gordon Elliott counts the Cheltenham Festival winner Aramax, the recent runaway Navan winner Felix Desjy, Mengli Khan, Saint D’oroux and Recent Revelations, third and fourth to Aramax in the Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle at Cheltenham, and The Very Man among his early team of seven as he seeks his first win in the race.
Joseph O'Brien won the Guinness Galway Hurdle with Tigris River in 2017 and his only entry this year is his Grade One winning juvenile hurdler A Wave Of The Sea.
Charles Byrnes has entered both Turnpike Trip and Wonder Laish while another with two in the race is John McConnell who has entered Play The Game, 11th last year, and Hannon. Hearts Are Trumps was sixth for Des McDonogh a year ago and is also entered.
There are two British-trained entries in the Hurdle. Fair Mountain could represent Dan Skelton while Olly Murphy has entered Hunters Call which gave him his first major success as a trainer in the Racing Welfare Handicap Hurdle at Ascot in December 2017.
