Walk In The Park Mare Remains Cheltenham Favourite

Maughreen (6m Walk In The Park – Molly’s Mate, by Goldmark) strengthened her Cheltenham Festival claims when making a smart hurdle debut at Punchestown on Tuesday.

The Willie Mullins-trained mare emerged as an exciting prospect 12 months ago, when running out an impressive winner of a bumper on debut, but later suffered a setback. Absent since then, she was sent off a short-priced favourite for the mares maiden hurdle and made all of the running under Paul Townend. She looked the likely winner from some way out, striding clear turning for home and was pushed out on the run-in to score by five lengths. €150,000 buy Dee’s Lady chased her home, four and three quarter lengths ahead of €310,000 buy Familiar Dreams.

The winning trainer commented: “I thought it was a huge performance for a mare having only her second run, against the experience that Familiar Dreams had. She went out and made her own running, jumped from hurdle to hurdle.”

Bookmakers subsequently shortened Maughreen from 4/1 favourite to 3/1 favourite for the Grade 2 Mares' Novices' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, and on future plans, Mullins said: “I’m not sure we’ll have any more chances to give her a run between now and Cheltenham, we’ll see. Looking at that, I don’t think she’ll need one. She should improve, I’m hoping she’ll improve from that.”

Owned by Closutton Racing Club and bred by Minch Bloodstock, Maughreen is a full-sister to Grade 2-winning chaser Blow Your Wad (Walk In The Park).