Thurles preview and tip: French Dynamite seeks explosive return

Mouse Morris views the Make Your Best Bet At BetVictor Chase at Thurles on Thursday as the perfect starting point for French Dynamite.

The consistent eight-year-old ran several big races in defeat last season, including when narrowly denied in the Paddy Power Gold Cup and when jumping the final fence in front in the Ryanair before fading into fourth.

Morris had earmarked the Clonmel Oil Chase as the place to get his season under way but testing ground has delayed him by a few weeks.

However, despite this only being Listed class, he faces five from the powerful Willie Mullins yard with two having won at Grade One level in the past.

“It’s some race isn’t it? It couldn’t be much tougher!” said Morris.

“He’s very well anyway, and we’ve got to get him started somewhere. We’ve had him ready a while, he was supposed to go to Clonmel but the ground was way too soft that day.

“We’ll see what happens and see how he gets on. We have to start somewhere.

“He’s a grand horse, I’d love a stable full of horses like him but he is just stuck between a rock and a hard place in not quite being a Grade One horse so far. The ground is a big thing for him, he always needs goodish ground.

“I have a couple of things in the back of my mind for him later in the season, but we’ll have to see how things go. He might be a horse for the Grand National, something like that.”

Mullins runs Janidil (Jody McGarvey), Classic Getaway (Danny Mullins), Capodanno (Mark Walsh) and Haut En Couleurs (Paul Townend).

Conor O’Dwyer’s El Barra, Ellmarie Holden’s Ex Patriot and Gordon Elliott’s Farouk D’alene complete the list.

ANDY STEPHENS' GUIDE AND TIP:

This Listed race has a rich roll of honour and there's plenty of depth to this year's renewal, with Willie Mullins saddling five runners in his quest to land this prize for a sixth time since 2015. The pick of his team looks Haut En Couleurs, even though he hasn’t won for the best part of two years. He would have won the Kinloch Brae at Thurles in January but for a luckless exit after the final fence, and subsequently ran well off lofty marks in handicap company. French Dynamite finished a six-length runner-up in the Kinloch Brae but he is 3lb better off with Haut En Couleurs and the likely better ground will also be more to his liking. Given his relish for this track (four wins), good record when fresh and positive stable form, he gets the nod. At double-figure odds, Farouk D’alene also merits a second look. He's fallen in his past two starts, in races 20 months apart, but his form as a novice puts him bang in the mix.