David Casey, assistant trainer to Willie Mullins, has told BetSelect.co.uk that while he still doesn’t believe he can be “confident” in Willie Mullins winning the Trainers Championship, he is hopeful the Closutton team will be strong enough to get them over the line.
Speaking to BetSelect.co.uk, Casey said: “You can never be confident in winning when you’re behind Gordon [Elliott] is still in front in the Trainers Championship and having points already on the board counts for a lot.
“We head into this week with a strong team and hopefully all of the horses will perform to their best. A lot of them haven’t run since Cheltenham so they’ll be fresh enough and ready to go. We still have work to do, but hopefully we’ll have a good enough week to get us over the line.
“We never really look at the British Championship until after Cheltenham and this year Dan Skelton had built an unassailable lead. That made us lean towards taking a much smaller team to Aintree and prioritising Punchestown.”
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Saving stars for Punchestown has always been the plan
Casey revealed that their plan has always been to save their stable stars for Punchestown, with a view to prioritising the Irish Trainers Championship.
He added: “The plan was always to save the likes of Gaelic Warrior, Fact To File, Lossiemouth, Majborough and Il Etait Temps to run here rather than at Aintree or Sandown. They’ve all been working away well so hopefully they’ll be in good form on the day.
“Both Il Etait Temps and Majborough have had the Champion Chase as their target since Cheltenham and if one of them can win it that would be great – we don’t really mind which one it is!”
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