Lossiemouth out to cap fine season in Punchestown’s Champion Hurdle

Lossiemouth bids to put the seal on another excellent season in the Boodles Champion Hurdle at Punchestown on Friday.

The superstar mare is three from three at the County Kildare circuit and will be long odds-on to extend her unbeaten course record to four after securing a fourth Cheltenham Festival success in the Champion Hurdle at Prestbury Park last month.

While beaten by Brighterdaysahead in the Irish equivalent at Leopardstown, the application of cheekpieces saw the Willie Mullins-trained grey comprehensively reverse that form in the Cotswolds and she now has the chance to notch her 11th Grade One victory in a race won in each of the past three seasons by her sidelined stablemate State Man.

“Paul would never have got off State Man to ride Lossiemouth any day of the week and told me that more than once over the last couple of years, but what a mare she is too,” said Mullins.

“She’s been to Cheltenham four times and won four times – that’s a fair statistic. She’s getting into Quevega territory.

“She’s come out of Cheltenham fine and we are looking forward to her being back at Punchestown, where she has a great record.”

The champion trainer also saddles high-class dual-purpose performer Absurde and the talented but keen-going Anzadam, who lost all chance in the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham with a bad mistake at the second flight.

Mullins added: “Anzadam has been difficult to ride in the early stage of his career, so I’m hoping we get a better handle on him.

“Maybe he’s a horse that needs to go over fences and that might make him easier to handle.”

Jeremy Scott’s 2025 Champion Hurdle heroine Golden Ace chased home State Man in this race 12 months ago and returns to Ireland for another attempt after finishing fifth at Cheltenham and fourth at Aintree this spring.

Scott said: “She’s travelled over and is very happy. She had a little canter (on Wednesday morning) and is all ready to go.

“We’re putting cheekpieces on her for the first time. The hope is they will just help her maintain her position – they won’t slow her down anyway.

“It’s good prize-money for the placings and as long as she runs her race hopefully we’ll pick up a bit. If anything happens to the others, you never know.”

Golden Ace is joined on the trip from Britain by Jonjo and A J O’Neill’s County Hurdle winner Wilful, while the home team is completed by David Harry Kelly’s outsider Glen Kiln and the long-absent William Munny from Barry Connell’s yard.

The latter has not been seen in competitive action since filling the runner-up spot in last year’s Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham behind Kopek Des Bordes, but Connell is confident he will not disgrace himself on his return.

He said: “William Munny is in good shape. We were all set for the Morgiana in November and a week or 10 days beforehand he was very lame and we thought he might have a fractured pelvis, but it turned out he just had a very bad muscle tear in his hind-quarters. I don’t know how he did it, but that was him and he had to stand in (his box) for six weeks.

“We’ve missed most of the season, but it’s great to be able to get him back out now and get a run into him in open company before we come back next year.

“There’s only seven runners and I think he’s fit enough to do himself justice and to be competitive. It’s a big ask going in there for your first run in open company, against the horses that are in it that have been on the go all season, but his run in the Supreme last year was exceptionally good – there’s four Grade One winners come out of it.

“If we’d had a prep run you’d be fancying him, but we’ll be happy if he runs a competitive race. I’d be disappointed if he’s not in the first three.”