Dublin Racing Festival: Gaelic Warrior humps top-weight to victory

Gaelic Warrior has big-race Cheltenham ambitions after running out a comfortable victor of the Festina Lente Charity Liffey Handicap Hurdle at Leopardstown.

The five-year-old – narrowly beaten when heavily-backed at the Festival in March – was the 10-11 favourite after facile successes in both hurdle starts this season, winning two contests by a combined 101 lengths.

Under Paul Townend the Rich Ricci-owned gelding was never any further back than the front group and when asked to quicken when turning for home he galloped clear to prevail under top-weight by three and three-quarter lengths.

"He has a bit of class and he proved it there, to do that in a competitive handicap was very good," said trainer Willie Mullins.

"Paul tried to get a nice position on the inside and then find a bit of room after the second-last. The horse had plenty in reserve.

"We always thought he had a serious engine and he's progressing all the time.

"He’s in the Supreme and Ballymore, I’ll have a good chat with Paul later on and see what direction we go with him.

"We’ll see what the fallout of this weekend is and see what we have for different races.

"He looked like a horse that’s still maturing and improving. He looked like a horse that could be a really nice novice chaser as well.

"We’ll see how he finishes out the season, obviously there is Cheltenham and Punchestown to come yet."

Gordon Elliott’s The Goffer (10-1) pocketed a valuable prize when winning the Bulmers Leopardstown Handicap Chase.

In a large field of 23 The Goffer was allowed to bide his time in mid division under Davy Russell, picking his way through rivals around the final bend and over the last fence.

From there he battled into the lead, passing Paul Gilligan’s Glamorgan Duke to cross the