Four key horses to watch out for at Punchestown on Sunday - including a Cheltenham Festival favourite for JP McManus

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This fixture Punchestown can often throw up Cheltenham Festival clues and deputy Ireland editor David Jennings profiles four horses who are worth keeping a close eye on with regard to the future.

Predators Gold

Lecky Watson won the Sky Bet Super Sub Novice Chase (12.50) last year on the way to landing the Brown Advisory at Cheltenham and if you fancy his stablemate to do something similar, you can get 20-1 about him upsetting Final Demand in March. 

Predators Gold, twice runner-up in Grade 1 novice hurdles, had been off the track for 582 days prior to making a winning reappearance in a hot beginners' chase at Navan last month. 

Predators Gold: in action in the novice chaseCredit: Patrick McCann

The manner in which he kept Slade Steel at bay suggests there is loads more to come from him over fences and he should be very hard to beat. 

I Started A Joke

Willie Mullins has won the 2m½f maiden hurdle (2.50) four times since 2021, but the father-and-son combination of Charles and Philip Byrnes will fancy their chances of taking this year's prize with I Started A Joke. 

He was the subject of a big gamble in a maiden hurdle at Limerick over Christmas, but bumped into the very smart King Rasko Grey, with a mistake four out putting him on the back foot. 

He has some classy bumper form from last season, most notably beating Road Exile by a nose at Limerick. A mark of 121 will make him hard to beat. 

Harbour Highway

Having bolted up at Bartlemy in a four-year-old maiden point-to-point for Michael Goff and then dented some big reputations in a Navan bumper on his first racecourse appearance, Harbour Highway had the world at his feet. 

So much was thought of him that he was sent straight to the Grade 1 Punchestown Champion Bumper afterwards and was only 9-1 to win it. He disappointed there and it has been a tale of woe ever since. 

Emmet Mullins: trainer of Harbour HighwayCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

After a pair of underwhelming efforts in beginners' chases, he tries his first handicap over fences off a mark of just 105 in the Sky Bet Extra Places Amateur National (1.50). You get the impression it is now or never for the strapping seven-year-old, who will be ridden by the very capable 7lb claimer Alan O'Sullivan. 

Pure Steel

Pure Steel takes on Predators Gold in the Sky Bet Super Sub Novice Chase (12.50) and win, lose or draw he is still of interest for the Jack Richards Novices' Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival. He is currently favourite for that with a few firms. 

Just 8-1 with bet365 and Unibet, he is biggest at 12-1 with Paddy Power and it will be interesting to see how he fares against the likes of Predators Gold, who has proven Grade 1 form over hurdles. 

Pure Steel was an emphatic winner over 2m at the track last time and this step up in trip should bring about further improvement. 

Jimmy Mangan’s six-year-old is a clean jumper who is completely unexposed over fences and this will tell us a lot more about whether he might be the next Spillane’s Tower.

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