Irish Champions Festival tips: Johnny Ward's Leopardstown bets

The greatest weekend on the Flat all season (in Ireland and Britain, if you ask me!) is upon us, and Racing TV is the only place that has it all for Irish Champions Weekend.

A baking hot few days will make it interesting ground-wise, and it's doubtless that Lorcan Wyer will ensure the ground is perfect.

Make sure you find time to watch On The Wire if you didn't watch it live on Racing TV's Facebook and YouTube page on Friday.

We previewed all the action at the Irish Champions Festival and our special guest, Ger Lyons, was illuminating as ever. He has a big team on Saturday.

Be lucky!

Only one horse basically cannot win this race, and the longest price bar him is Sprewell, but he is not without hope.

Having won his trial so impressively (over course and distance), he finished fourth in the Derby, despite reportedly not handling the track, and was sent off at 13-2 for the Irish equivalent at the Curragh.

Perhaps he should not be excused that run, but the sad fatality suffered by a rival did seem to impede him. It's really hard to call the pace angle here, but he is a strapping, and presumably, maturing colt who will have been trained for this by Jessica Harrington.

With a real liking for the track, and an ability to come home well, I think he will outrun his chunky odds (he's a general 50-1, at the time of writing).

I was hoping for a better price here, but so be it, and bookmakers are paying up to six places.

This horse's course-and-distance offering at the back end of last season was wildly eye-catching. He endured a horrible trip, and it still amazes me he finished third (Safecracker, who second, is a fine yardstick, and the very classy Yashin was fourth).

Since then, he's won three of his four starts over hurdles, and I'd be amazed if he has not been aimed at this for some time.

Broadhurst lacks combat, but that might be a positive. In the past ten editions of this race, five three-year-olds have won.

The selection is by No Nay Never and typically quite big, but the way he finished when last seen at Naas off this rating renders him really hard to oppose.

He has cheekpieces on, which is a talking point, but Ryan Moore is in the saddle, and Aidan O'Brien has opted to rely solely on this colt here, despite having a yard full of three-year-old's, so I see no obvious downside to backing Broadhurst.