Bellshill takes Navan test for Willie Mullins
Last season’s Punchestown Champion Bumper winner Bellshill faces his first serious task over timber in Sunday’s Navan Novice Hurdle.
The Willie Mullins-trained five-year-old barely came off the bridle on his hurdling debut at Cork last month and now tests the water at Grade Two level.
The champion trainer also saddles Gowran Park winner Stone Hard in a race he has won four times in the last seven years with Mikael D’Haguenet (2008), Boston Bob (2011), Pont Alexandre (2012) and Briar Hill (2013).
“You’d rather try to go for a winners’ of one race, but we’re so late in the season now we just have to kick up a gear and hope for the best,” Mullins said on his website www.wpmullins.com.
“We’ll find out what we have.”
Ruby Walsh partners Bellshill, with leading French jockey Jacques Ricou, who this week arrived in Ireland to spend a winter spell with the champion trainer, partnering Stone Hard.
The Mullins pair feature a small but select field of just four runners.
Gordon Elliott, victorious 12 months ago with No More Heroes, will be hoping Tycoon Prince can bounce back to form.
The winner of three bumpers, the five-year-old bolted up on his hurling debut at Punchestown before being beaten at odds-on at Navan a month ago.
Christy Roche’s Naas scorer Chesterfieldavenue completes the line-up.
