THIS weekend is all about the Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown with two days of top-class action and, although many of the prizes are worth winning in their own right, the majority of them serve as Cheltenham Festival Trials.

Saturday:

The big race on day one is the Irish Champion Hurdle at 3.10 and I confidently expect SHARJAH (nb) to cement his claims near the top of the ante-post list here.

The quicker ground is very much in his favour and it seems that he simply hasn’t been given the credit he deserved for seeing off his rivals in the Matheson Hurdle over Christmas, albeit against a sub-standard field.