Punchestown Premiere Weekend 2025: Morgiana Hurdle race analysis and preview

Saturday November 22 will see some of Ireland’s elite hurdlers in action, as the 2025 Morgiana Hurdle gets underway. 

Punchestown racecourse is set for another weekend in the spotlight, playing host to two days of fantastic racing. 

The Morgiana Hurdle highlights Day One of the meeting; it will see runners navigate just over two miles of County Kildare and jump nine flights of hurdles. 

Trainer Gordon Elliott took home the top share of 150,000 euros in awarded prize money last year, when his mare Brighterdaysahead won the race. 

Casheldale Lad and Ndaawi are set to represent his stable in this race, though both trade at 7/1. 

The former has won three of his last four races, with his latest two victories coming back-to-back in Listed Hurdle races. 

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Breakthrough win

They follow his breakthrough Novice win – at this course – in May and a third-placed effort in a Grade Three race at Galway. 

Ndaawi was the winner of that race and it is the highlight of 12 runs for Elliott, since transferring from Andrew Balding’s yard. 

He was highly-tried in flat races by Balding before making the journey over the Irish Sea in December 2023. 

Prior to that Galway victory, he had finished second in the County Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival and two Autumn runs back on the flat, at Chester and Newmarket, will have kept him race fit for his first start back over obstacles since. 

The Elliott pair are set to face a quintet of Willie Mullins-trained representatives, with the four horses at the front of the market trained by last season’s Champion trainer. 

Anzadam is the 4/5 favourite having won all four of his career starts, the first two of which came in France back in 2023. 

Winning debut

He made a winning debut for Mullins when taking victory in a Grade Three race for four-year-olds at Fairyhouse, in November last year. 

The now five-year-old then added to his tally in a Grade Three contest at Naas, which came in January. 

Back in October, Mullins said: “Anzadam looks to have enough potential to go down the Champion Hurdle route.

“There’s been little bits of bother with him but this year everything has been good, he has the ability but sometimes his training schedule gets interrupted.

“If I can get a clear run into him, I think we’re looking at going for the Fighting Fifth with him.

“Like State Man he’s owned by Joe and Marie Donnelly and there seems little point in both of them going for the Morgiana.

“It’s more to keep an owners’ horses apart than looking at the championship, but obviously that’s no harm either.”

Ruled out for season

Anzadam still holds an entry into the Fighting Fifth, but State Man has since been ruled out for the season after suffering an injury. 

Stablemate Irancy runs in the colours of owner JP McManus and he is trading at the 5/2 second-favourite. 

He has won three of his five races since joining Mullins from France – where he won a national-hunt flat race – in late 2023. 

A Grade Two Novice win at Fairyhouse, in early April, preceded a run in which he reversed the form with Kopek Des Bordes when winning a Grade One Novices’ Hurdle, after finishing seventh behind his winning stablemate at the Cheltenham Festival. 

Salvator Mundi had finished ahead of Irancy in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, though he finished second to him in that victory, with Mullins training the first four finishers in the race. 

It was a run which followed his second win of the campaign, which came in a Grade One Novices’ Hurdle race at Aintree’s Grand National meeting. 

Seasonal reappearance

The pair are set to line up against each other once again, with both horses set to make their seasonal reappearance for the first time since their clash in April. 

Salvator Mundi is currently 7/1 in the betting and is the highest-priced Mullins challenger in the first four of the market. 

Seven-time Grade One winning mare Lossiemouth is the (3/1) third-favourite and has won 11 of her 14 races, finishing second twice and falling once. 

She has been off the track since recording back-to-back Grade One victories at the Cheltenham Festival and the Grand National meeting. 

Lossiemouth will be in receipt of weight given her sex and 3/1 could be a big price if she runs on Saturday. 

Kargese is another Mullins-trained mare in the field that could be hugely overpriced. 

10/1 could underestimate this two-time Grade One winner, who has never finished outside the first three in her 11 career runs – including behind renowned horses Sir Gino, Majborough and State Man. 

Glen Kiln is another in the betting and though he has recorded some respectable form, it doesn’t compare to that of his rivals here.

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