Ulster National the feature at Downpatrick

Downpatrick’s biggest race — the Toalsbet.com Ulster National — takes place at the County Down venue on Sunday and the 50,000 euro contest is another competitive-looking renewal with 10 runners.

Pineau De Re won in 2013 — a year and two days prior to his famous triumph in the 2014 Aintree Grand National — and while a winner of that calibre is rare, this year’s top-weight Out Sam for Gordon Elliott, has a rating of 140, suggesting the winner will need to be decent.

Hopes are high for Keith Watson’s locally-trained Amaulino who beat the reopposing School Lane to win at Leopardstown earlier this month and while raised 9lb for that, he won nicely then and could progress some more being a six-year-old.

Elliott sends out From Eden to contest the Molson Coors Handicap Hurdle and the application of first-time blinkers could well help the six-year-old’s chances, having bumped into useful winner Thereisnodoubt at Gowran recently.

Elliott also has strong claims in the bumper with Multifactorial under Lisa O’Neill. The Gigginstown House Stud-owned gelding has finished second twice in useful Navan bumpers on his most recent starts and can get the better of the Willie Mullins-trained Fasola Tido

The WKD Rated Hurdle sees Elliott run both Count Simon (Davy Russell) and Kuiper Belt (Jack Kennedy), but Andratx looks an interesting runner for Mark McNiff.

He enjoyed a great season last time around, winning four, two of them at Downpatrick, where he was also second on his final outing.

A problem kept him off the track for over 500 days and he was entitled to need his comeback run at Fairyhouse when last of 10. He can be expected to strip much fitter this time, though, and the step up in trip is also in his favour.

Declan Lavery, in the news this week for winning his appeal against a 10-day ban picked up at Cheltenham, rides Tareeshar for Brian Hamilton in the hunter chase.

The ground Downpatrick today is now good to yielding, good in places. It is set to be a dry day ahead.