Horse Racing Tips: Gaelic Warrior can complete the Gold Cup double

There are five meetings taking place across Britain and Ireland on Wednesday but the main event is obviously Day 2 of the Punchestown Festival. We have three Grade 1 events to look forward to across the eight-race card and the pick of them is the Punchestown Gold Cup.

Irish Gold Cup winner Fact To File takes on Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Gaelic Warrior and it’s set up to be a titanic clash. Here are our three strongest fancies for our horse racing tips, all of which run at Punchestown, and chief amongst them is a Cheltenham Festival winner in the big race of the day. 

16:15 Punchestown - Fruit De Mer @ 4/1

Betfred are offering four places instead of the usual three in this race and the Albert Bartlett form suggests the winner will be one of The Passing Wife and the Henry de Bromhead-trained FRUIT DE MER, with the latter getting the nod on this occasion.

He was an impressive winner of a point-to-point at Ballycrystal for Donnchadh Doyle back in April 2024 and was first past the post on his rules debut in a Limerick bumper. Very green that day, he bumped his rival and the stewards decided to reverse the placings.

Making his hurdling debut at Naas in November, he returned to winning ways over 2m3f and there was plenty to like about that performance.

Then, it was a clear career-best effort when runner-up in the Albert Bartlett at Cheltenham last time out and a similar effort will do here.

16:50 Punchestown - The Mourne Rambler @ 13/8

Noel Meade hadn’t landed a Cheltenham Festival winner for a while but the drought ended with THE MOURNE RAMBLER’s victory in the Champion Bumper in March. Top Flat jockey Colin Keane was on board and he showed a sharp turn of foot in the closing stages.

Held up in the early part of the race, he was switched out with two furlongs to go and hit the front a furlong or so before the line. It was a very impressive display and he made ground very quickly, indicating that there was no fluke about that success.

He made his debut under rules in a good bumper at Leopardstown on Boxing Day and some smart horses have won it over the years, including Facile Vega. The Mourne Rambler won with plenty in hand and a couple of subsequent winners have come out of the race.

18:05 Punchestown - Gaelic Warrior @ 5/6

It has been an excellent season for the very talented GAELIC WARRIOR on the whole and he started the campaign with a game success over stablemate Fact To File in the John Durkan here first time out. That was one of the best form races of the season.

The sprint finish didn’t really suit in the King George but he ran well enough and was only a short head behind the winner.

Fact To File gained his revenge in the Irish Gold Cup but the best was yet to come from Gaelic Warrior and he was awesome in the Gold Cup.

Cheltenham’s flagship race is historically very tricky to win but Mullins’ eight-year-old made his rivals look average.

The form has been boosted, as runner-up Jango Baie then went on to win at Aintree.

If in similar form here, Gaelic Warrior can complete the Cheltenham/Punchestown double.

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