Patrick Mullins is eagerly-anticipating a couple of choice mounts on day one at Galway on Monday.
The seven-day festival in Ballybrit kicks off with a mixed seven-race card, featuring the €110,000 Connacht Hotel Handicap for qualified riders, in which leading amateur Mullins rides Tounsivator for his father, Willie, and conditions are expected to suit the seven-year-old.
Mullins said: “It’s the most valuable amateur race probably in England, Ireland or France – it’s a huge pot and I’m very luck to get a ride in it but 20 runners around Galway on good ground, it’s a rollercoaster of a race and you need a lot of luck in running.
“I probably would have chosen Daddy Long Legs had he got in, but he’s first reserve and might go to the amateur maiden on Wednesday instead.
“But Tounsivator is bottom weight, he ran well at the track when fourth in last year’s Galway Hurdle and he won on the Flat last time out. We’re drawn in 19 but the year I won it I was drawn 21 so that’s not an impossible task. I think he has to have a big chance.
“Jody (Townend) is on Too Bossy For Us. I rode him in the race last year and we put a hood on him and it back-fired. So he has some good runs to his name, he was third over Irish Champions Weekend last year, but he is just a little bit more exposed than Tounsivator, who I thought just had a little bit more scope for improvement.”
