Johnny Ward's Irish Angle: Solomn Grundy looks good value in Paddy Power Chase

What a day's racing we had on Thursday, the flops of Laurina and Lostintranslation being the only real sore points on a day when Leopardstown, as a visitor, was buzzing.

Younger racegoers made it a day to remember at the track and the hope is that they won a few bob and come back again.

This column struggled in the main to find the winner, but Friday looks to contain one of the bets of the Christmas period - somewhat unexpectedly - in the veterans' chase at Limerick!

This horse is for horses aged 10 years and up, so the selection is one of the younger ones in the line-up, and bar the selection, few can be fancied with much confidence. The ground is a major issue for Hash Brown on paper and this looks likely to have been the plan for Cappacurry Zak for a few months, given his eligibility for the race, how well he goes at Limerick and the pot on offer. Banker material.

A potential Gold Cup horse in the making, this horse stays really well, and even though he beat little at Navan he still looked full of himself. He should take a lot of beating here.

Solomn Grundy was a really eye-taking fourth in this year but he has a particularly good record fresh and is really interesting here at the prices. Henry De Bromhead is the man of the moment and, with the ground really testing by Leopardstown standards, positives are plenty for this horse.

The race in which this Fame And Glory-bred finished third on debut at Leopardstown appealed as a strong one at the time, with Gigginstown's racing manager, Eddie O'Leary, immediately mentioning Ragnar Lodbrok afterwards despite winning the race with Eric Bloodaxe. Likely this is a hot race too, but he has the makings of being a really nice horse.