Pont Alexandre© Photo Healy Racing
Outlander and Pont Alexandre form two-thirds of a formidable three-pronged assault by Willie Mullins on Saturday's Flogas Novice Chase at Leopardstown.
The champion trainer has saddled five of the last eight winners of the two-mile-five-furlong Grade One and has strong claims of enhancing that record this weekend.
Outlander made it two from two over fences in a Grade Two at Limerick over Christmas and has a "huge chance" of completing the hat-trick, according to the trainer's son and assistant, Patrick.
Pont Alexandre made a brilliant return from over two and a half years on the sidelines when scoring on his chasing debut at Punchestown in early December, but suffered a surprise defeat at the hands of stable companion Roi Des Francs at Naas last month. The master of Closutton also runs Mckinley
"Outlander is in very good form and must go there with a huge chance," said Mullins junior.
"He has very good form at Leopardstown having beaten Martello Tower, Killultagh Vic and Windsor Park here in a novice hurdle last year. They all went on to win at Cheltenham. He seems to jump fences better than he did hurdles and has everything going for him.
"I think Pont Alexandre should improve on his last run. It was his second run back after a long time off and because of that maybe we weren't hard enough on him after his run at Punchestown.
"There should be improvement to come from him and we know he's got the ability, but because of the injury problems he's had you're walking on egg shells the whole time.
"Mckinley is a Grade One winner and has the ability, but he's a bit of enigma in that he's not the most consistent. He deserves his place in the field but his overall form is probably a bit behind what the other two have done."
Noel Meade struck gold in last year's renewal with Apache Stronghold and hopes slightly better ground will help Monksland improve on his latest effort when third behind No More Heroes at this track.
"The ground in Leopardstown the last day was terrible and Sean (Flanagan) said he just couldn't get out of it and the fences looked 10ft tall to him. A little bit better ground would help him and he's in good form. As everyone knows he's not been easy to train, but we've had a better run with him this year than we've had before," Meade said.
