By Callum Close
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The Irish National Hunt season will air its grand finale when the 2025 Punchestown Festival gets underway.
Tuesday, April 29, will kick off the five-day event that sees Britain and Ireland‘s most prestigious jump yards battle in the Irish countryside.
Each day hosts a feature race, and day four hosts one of the hottest-anticipated runnings of the Punchestown Champion Hurdle.
Two miles and nine hurdles await horses seeking prize money worth 300 thousand euros.
Constitution Hill
This year will see six-time British Champion Trainer Nicky Henderson send Constitution Hill over the Irish Sea.
However, the ever-pragmatic seven-barrows stable jockey Nico de Boinville, who has ridden Constitution Hill in all of his races, will make way for James Bowen due to injuries sustained at Plumpton.
Owner Michael Buckley thoroughbred has seen his perfect – 10 from 10 – record blemished, in his latest two runs, when he fell at Cheltenham and Aintree – in the Gold Cup and Aintree Hurdle.
Both are races that he has won prior and these two defeats are the only ones of his career since his point-to-point debut in 2021.
In his last schooling session before embarking on his westward journey, Constitution Hill jumped four fences as a way of fine-tuning his jumping.
Henderson said: “Everything went extremely well and I couldn’t be happier with his condition.
Should he win, it would be a third win in the race for Henderson and a first since retired, JP McManus-owned Buveur d’Air won it in 2019.
State Man
The British-trained horse faces challenges hailing from all over Ireland, but perhaps the chief threat is State Man – for the newly-crowned trainer Willie Mullins.
He has won the last two runnings of this race and was set to make it back-to-back Cheltenham Champion Hurdles before falling at the last flight.
After State Man retained the Irish Champion Hurdle for the third time at Leopardstown in February, Mullins said: “I’ve always said we don’t know how good he is because he only just does enough in his races.”
Similarly to Constitution Hill, he will arrive at Punchestown with a point to prove ,with the pair set to meet for the third time in their careers.
Having a mare, or are they?
From geldings to mares, the next two in the market are the Gordon Elliott-trained Brighterdaysahead and British-raider Golden Ace.
The former was hotly-tipped to serve it up to Constitution Hill in the Cheltenham Champion Hurdle, after she destroyed State Man in a Grade One – at Leopardstown – in December.
It was the latter of two defeats State Man suffered to the Gigginstown-owned horse this season.
Golden Ace, meanwhile, was the benefactor at Cheltenham as she romped to victory at 25/1 in the Champion Hurdle, after the top three in the market misfired.
Other horses in the betting include the County Hurdle winner Kargese and Sussex Champion Hurdle winner Absurde.
The race is due off at 6:40pm UK time on Friday, May 2nd, and will be available to watch on terrestrial TV, via ITV, or on Racing TV for subscribers.
READ MORE: Punchestown Festival 2025 – Gold Cup analysis and preview
