Ground conditions threaten to scupper Naas return for Kopek Des Bordes

It’s the first week of November, the Breeders’ Cup and the Melbourne Cup are done and dusted, and yet the spoilsport weather continues to dominate the nascent jumps season.

Watering continues at both of Ireland’s weekend fixtures in Gowran and Naas, providing ground conditions that threaten to postpone the reappearance of another big name.

The exciting Kopek Des Bordes is declared to run in Sunday’s Grade Three Barberstown Castle Chase at Naas, although Willie Mullins’s team has already indicated he will only line up if the going is suitable.

What constitutes suitable has prompted plenty of debate in the last week given wholesale defections from last weekend’s Grade One card at Down Royal and rancour about watering, or the lack of it.

Reigning two-mile champion chaser Il Etait Temps skipped his intended comeback at Clonmel on Thursday due to the going. Now, the stable companion that bookmakers rate as his biggest threat to a successful title defence in March could find himself in the same boat.

“We will have a look at the ground in Naas for Kopek Des Bordes,” Patrick Mullins reported. “He is ready to rock and we need to get runs and experience into him, after his interrupted preparation last season. If we’re happy with the ground at Naas, we’ll go.”

Happiness about running potential top horses on the prevailing dry ground is generally scarce. Gowran’s famously deep track being watered in November is symptomatic of a growing problem for jump racing in particular.

Saturday’s three National Hunt fixtures in Britain all take place on watered ground, at Aintree, Kelso and Uttoxeter. Whether such watering is sufficient to encourage competition appears to be down to individual interpretation of acceptable risk.

Kopek Des Bordes would be a clear headline act if he does line up at a track that on Monday hosted a seminar called ‘Racing on Changing Ground.’

The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board, the Association of Irish Racecourses and the Irish Racecourse Ground-staff Association organised the event, which was attended by representatives from every track in the country. It included speeches from various agronomists about the climate change challenges for racing.

The long-term theoretical aspect to the issue will count for little, though, towards the ‘Kopek’ choice faced by Willie Mullins and Paul Townend.

The usual parameters may not apply as getting experience over fences into the headstrong gelding is an important factor.

The 2025 Supreme Novices Hurdle winner has raced just three times over fences, winning a beginners’ chase before problems meant he next lined up on the biggest stage of all in the Arkle at Cheltenham. He still looked like winning that until momentarily genuflecting at the back of the last fence and allowing his stable companion Kargese in to win.

A subsequent start at Punchestown ended disastrously. Kopek Des Bordes again showed his free-running instincts until crashing out at the second-last fence.

Clearly possessed of a massive engine, the six-year-old presents a considerable challenge of his own in harnessing that talent properly.

Up against him are four rivals including another stable companion, Westport Cove, as well as the talented Irish Panther. The latter’s professionalism was underlined when getting pitched into senior company in the Queen Mother Champion Chase last season. He followed up by finishing runner-up at Punchestown.

Townend also has a talented if enigmatic prospect to look forward to in a later Beginners Chase.

Anzadam has looked enough of a handful for much of his hurdling career that the prospect of fences at speed might discourage some, but the top rider is clearly up for it. The Grade One winner Eachtotheirown might prove a more straightforward prospect.

The other significant Naas highlight is likely to be the hurdling debut of last season’s Cheltenham Champion Bumper winner, The Mourne Rambler.

Sam Ewing is in the hotseat aboard Noel Meade’s runner, who memorably scored under top flat rider Colin Keane last spring.

“Hopefully The Mourne Rambler will be as exciting a hurdler as he was a bumper horse,” Ewing said. “I’m really looking forward to him.”

One horse thriving in the prevailing conditions is A Snow White Park, who reverts to hurdles for a handicap at Gowran on Saturday having completed a hat-trick over fences in Clonmel on Thursday.

The Mags Mullins-trained mare had luck on her side when landing a Grade Three at Roscommon but justified odds-on earlier this week off an official chase rating of 122. It makes her 100-hurdles rating look very exploitable.

Kayla’s Friend came within an ace of confounding 50/1 odds when beaten half a length at Fairyhouse earlier in the week. The runner, formerly trained by Olly Murphy, was a winner at Uttoxeter during the summer and could step up on just her third Irish start.

Gavin Cromwell looks to have secured Sixandahalf a winning chance over fences in Saturday’s opener.