'One of Last Season’s Top Novice Hurdlers' - Horses To Watch at Navan This Weekend The Navan Racing Festival takes place this weekend and the two-day fixture provides some excellent action for us to enjoy. Saturday offers up two Grade 2 events, the Lismullen Hurdle and the Fortria Chase, as well as some potentially interesting novice and maiden races. Sunday’s feature race is the €100,000 Troytown Handicap Chase, which is always a thoroughly competitive affair. We’ve had a look at the entries and picked out some horses who you won’t want to miss if they line up at Navan this weekend. Saturday Navan’s opening race on Day 1 is a 2m4f maiden hurdle and Gordon Elliott runs Classical Greek. He won a Down Royal bumper on his first start under rules and finished third behind a stablemate in a Listed race at this course after that. This horse could be a fair novice hurdler. One of last season’s top novice hurdlers, The Yellow Clay is set to make his first start of the current campaign in the Lismullen Hurdle. He was narrowly denied by The New Lion in the Turners Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham Festival and that form makes him the one to beat. Probably the most exciting runner of the entire weekend, Barry Connell’s Champion Chase hero Marine Nationale is set to make his return in the Fortria Chase. He bolted up at Cheltenham and Punchestown, so expectations are likely to be high this weekend. Willie Mullins’ stable is fairly quiet at this time of year but he is set to unleash Supreme Novices’ Hurdle winner Kopek Des Bordes on Saturday. A chase campaign beckons and this powerful sort will be looking to bounce back after a poor run at Punchestown. Saturday’s card concludes with a bumper and there are a couple of intriguing debutants. Emmet Mullins’ Jet To Monte Carlo and Gordon Elliott’s Lemmy Caution have both won point-to-pointing in Ireland and could be smart bumper horses for the season. Sunday The Grade 3 Monksfield Novice Hurdle looks set to be cracker and Henry de Bromhead’s Walks In June looked smart when winning a maiden hurdle in good style at Limerick last month. He could progress nicely through his novice campaign. Eclipse Chaser and Kalypso’chance are also entered in this race and they could both be horses to follow this season. Better Days Ahead wasn’t far from the top of the tree in the staying novice chase division last term and he could line up in Sunday’s feature race, the Troytown Chase. Gordon Elliott’s gelding will carry top weight but could be better than his current rating suggests. The beginners’ chase later on the card features Final Demand, an excellent novice hurdler last term. Despite failing to fire in a hot renewal of the Turners Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham in March. He bounced right back to his best with an impressive victory at Punchestown and is likely to improve over fences.
