Gordon Elliott has admitted he “needed to win the Irish Grand National to have any chance” of winning the Irish trainers’ championship.
Elliott has led for the majority of the season and still does approaching the business end of the campaign. The Punchestown Festival will prove decisive, but Elliott’s lead has significantly dwindles. The weight of Willie Mullins’ Closutton yard will almost certainly prove too much in the final week.
Nevertheless, Elliott is proud of having taken the race so far. He hopes that augurs well for future seasons.
“No, that’s (the trainers’ championship) gone,” he said to the Racing Post. “We needed to win the Irish Grand National to have any chance and we didn’t, so we definitely can’t win it now, but there’s no shame in that. We’ve had a brilliant season from start to finish and will lead Willie Mullins into the final week of the season. That’s incredible when you think of it.
“As I’ve said all along, Willie Mullins is a special man and a special trainer and I’m just unlucky to have been born around the same time as him. Hopefully in the next three or four years we might be able to make him fight even harder for it. We’ll keep trying anyway.”
Brighterdaysahead to skip Punchestown but Wodhooh and Tahupoo head charge
Brighterdaysahead has been entered in two of the Punchestown Grade 1s. Entries for the season-ending festival began yesterday with the top level contests.
However, she is unlikely to be a part of Elliott’s team after her Aintree Hurdle success last week.
“I’d imagine Brighterdaysahead is done for the season. I know she has an entry in the two Grade 1s at Punchestown but, personally, I think she’s done enough for the year.”
It will instead be Wodhooh and Teahupoo who lead the charge. The former was Elliott’s only winner at the Cheltenham Festival, while the latter is a former winner of Punchestown’s Stayers’ Hurdle. El Cairos, fifth in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, is also likely to be a presence.
“Wodhooh goes to Punchestown for sure. She’s a super mare and we just decided that the race at Punchestown was probably the right one for her. She goes there with a big chance over her ideal trip.
“Teahupoo will try to win the Stayers’ again and El Cairos will run in the Grade 1. I think he’s better than what we saw of him in the Supreme.”
The Punchestown festival begins on Tuesday 28 April, concluding on Saturday 2 May.