Cheltenham Tips / Wayne Bailey / 10 March 2009 / Leave a comment

Our Irish correspondent Wayne Bailey rates the horses from across the water, and suggests some backs and lays for day one of the festival...

The British trained horses have most of the big races sewn up this year it seems, so the Irish will have to rely on their novices, cross country chasers and bumper horses to try to raid a few prizes at the 2009 festival. For many, Cousin Vinny is the Irish banker of the meeting, and the fact that he runs in the first race of the day means that many a betting pot will go boom or bust very early on!

His many backers (which include me) got a scare on Monday afternoon when Willie Mullins said that the horse hadn't travelled too well and wasn't eating properly on Sunday - but his price hasn't drifted too much on Betfair and the word on the street is that he ate up well on Monday night. Provided all is OK, he should have too much in the tank for these and will take all the beating today. I believe Timeform have called it right by rating him 11lbs ahead of the field for this race, and I think he'll win with a bit in hand this afternoon.

The [4.20] on offer is great value and Patrick Mullins can silence those doubters that have been extremely harsh on him since the horse unseated the young jockey in the Deloitte Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown. I was one of those that done my dough in that day, but you just have to dust yourself down and there's no point in blaming the jockey and feeling sorry for yourself. Patrick Mullins knows this horse better than anyone, and he's already won 17 races from 32 rides for his father in 2009 thus far. A win for Vinny would get the Guinness taps flowing freely which would be no bad thing in these times of doom and gloom!

The Cross Country Chase is one of the newer races added to the card when the festival was extended to four days and has been completely dominated by the Irish throughout its short life. Indeed, Cross Country specialist Enda Bolger has taken this race on three of those renewals and once again he has a strong hand with L'Ami and last year's winner Garde Champetre. To be honest, I'm finding it hard to separate these and have decided to dutch the two horses at an overall price of [1.90].

Tony Martin is famous for 'landing a touch', especially in the handicaps - but it's very hard to have confidence in his horses when you consider the fact that he hasn't had a single winner in 2009 despite sending 57 horses to post. Indeed, only seven of those horses could manage a place and it seems that there is something amiss in the yard. He's got two running today, namely Patsy Hall and Wonderkid, but I'm keen to get both of those horses in the metaphorical satchel at [11.50] and [16.0] respectively.

Summary
1:30 - Back Cousin Vinny at [4.20]
2:40 - Lay Patsy Hall at [11.50]
4:00 - Dutch L'Ami and Garde Champetre at an overall price of [1.90]
4:00 - Lay Wonderkid at [16.0]