O'Brien Bullish About Triumph Hope Kevin O'Brien is hoping to make his first Cheltenham Festival trip as a trainer a winning one with Duty in the JCB Triumph Hurdle.The former Sir Michael Stoute-trained four-year-old has won his last two starts in convincing style, beating a trio of Willie Mullins' Triumph hopefuls on his last start at Fairyhouse.He is as low as 14-1 with some bookmakers for the Cheltenham contest and O'Brien thinks he fully deserves his place in the line up.'The plan at the moment is to take him to Cheltenham and if he gets through next week OK and he is fit and well, he will be there,' said the County Laois handler.'He has come out of his last race without a bother on him and as long as he is showing us the right signs, he'll be in the line up.'He has done all his racing over hurdles on heavy, but before he ran on it I was worried that he wouldn't handle it because his best flat form was on pretty fast ground.'So come Cheltenham I would be very surprised if he didn't handle the ground, whatever it is.'After his last two races he has come back in good order so it obviously hasn't knocked him back racing on heavy, either.'I would say that Eoin Griffin's filly Lounaos, who finished fourth in the AIG, looks to be the best of the Irish juveniles but after that my horse is as good, if not better, than any of the rest of them.'He would be my first Festival runner and the owner's dad, Des Sharkey, owns Nicanor so it would be nice to go and follow up his win from last year.'(C) PA Sport
