RUBY'S ON SIDE

Festival legend shares his thoughts on the hot prospects this year

NO-ONE knows the ups and downs of Cheltenham better than serial winner Ruby Walsh.

Out of the saddle and ready to watch with the rest of us, his expert eye for a horse is keen as it ever was and here the 59-time Festival winner shares his views on this year’s stars – and zooms in on the novices.

Fresh from the Dublin Racing Festival his thoughts turned to rides he would have relished in the Cotswolds.

“Galopin Des Champs is an obvious one in the Gold Cup after what he did at the weekend,” Walsh told Racing Ahead. “You’d have to think Lossiemouth in the Mares’ Hurdle, Dinoblue in the Mares’ Chase – there’s three that are all going to be favourite which you wouldn’t mind riding if you had a desire to be a jockey.”

But he’s also looking at the emerging challengers poised to make a breakthrough.

“It could be Sir Gino – the way he won on Trials day at Cheltenham, but even to look at him, he’s not your typical ex-Flat juvenile hurdler,” he added. “He looks a National Hunt horse – his size, he looks like a horse that could be a chaser down the line. Next year will be tricky for him, but I do think he’s a horse that, allowed to develop, could become a superstar.”

At Leopardstown, he was impressed by free-running Ballyburn, a massive fancy under Paul Townend for Cheltenham’s Supreme Novices’ Hurdle: ”I think that’s how he runs – Paul said that he did get a bit keen maybe as they slowed down and they headed away from the third hurdle around the bend to the fourth hurdle and he was happy enough to take him back there.