Irish Gold Cup next up for Empire Of Dirt Empire Of Dirt will be tested at the highest level in the Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown on February 12th. A winner at the Cheltenham Festival for the now retired Colm Murphy last March, he has only run once for new trainer Gordon Elliott. He was also successful then, in the valuable Troytown Handicap Chase at Navan, and is now set to step up in class. "We'll enter Empire Of Dirt in the Irish Gold Cup, the entries close soon for that," said Elliott. "So he'll be entered in that, he's obviously entered in the Gold Cup but we'll see what weight he gets in the English National. I'd like to fire as many at that as I can. "He'll be entered in the Irish National as well. "There's three weeks between Cheltenham and Aintree this year but we'll see how he gets on in the Gold Cup at Leopardstown and go from there."
