Murphy aims to uphold Irish record with Zaarito

Colm Murphy is hoping to continue Ireland´s dominance in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper with Zaarito at Cheltenham on Thursday.

The raiding party have won 12 out of the 15 renewals of the National Hunt Flat race and appear to hold a very strong hand again.

Along with Murphy´s Zaarito, unbeaten in three starts, the king of the bumper Willie Mullins has four strong chances.

The race has been postponed 24 hours after the shock decision to abandon Wednesday´s racing on safety grounds, but Murphy does not envisage that being a problem.

"It does upset plans a little bit, everything was geared for today and ideally he´d love to be running today. But it´s a case of ticking him over for a day and hopefully it won´t inconvenience him too much.

"The track is on the soft side, but I imagine with all that wind that unless it rains again it will dry up before tomorrow.

"I´m not unduly worried about the ground for him because he has won on all surfaces and I´m hoping it shouldn´t inconvenience him too much.

"There´s are awful lot of horses in there that have won one or two and they could be anything.

"Willie´s horses look very impressive, but there are a lot of unknowns in there.

"You´d be hoping for the run of the race because it is one of those where there will be an awful lot of hard luck stories.

"Hopefully, if we get the run of the race, he´ll be at the business end of things," he told At The Races.

Mullins, who has won the race five times, runs Apt Approach, Cousin Vinny, Lilywhitedancer and Drive On Regardles and admitted the abandonment took him by surprise.

"Once we´d got over the bad forecast for Tuesday we thought we´d get over the rest of the week," he said.

"We got our horses over quite early and we were pleased that we missed all the bad weather so they are settled in well. It is no more than a bit of an inconvenience."

It has become one of the great annual guessing games of the Festival trying to pinpoint Mullins´ number one contender in this race and he admits that he can not split them.

"Apt Approach beat a lovely mare (Grancore Girl) who is a half-sister to Black Harry and she franked the form by winning, so that form looks really good," Mullins told Racing UK.

"Cousin Vinny won nicely at Punchestown, he got into a bit of trouble during the race but his speed got him out of it.

"Patrick (Mullins) got him on the wide outside and he must have made up 10 lengths in the final furlong, he looked like he was going to be a moderate fourth but he ended up winning by over a length going away.

"Lilywhitedancer won at Gowran in very heavy ground and made all in what was a decent race.

"Drive On Regardles has won two bumpers and he is a real dour stayer. He might not have beaten much, but at least he has won two.

"He only just does enough and I love that in a racehorse, this hill will suit him down to the ground if they go a good gallop.

"Ruby (Walsh) more or less left it up to me this year so I divided them up with which horse would suit the riders and I´d be happy if any of them win."