Captain Chris Firmly Pointed at Punchestown

One of the breakout performances at the 2011 Cheltenham Festival is set to follow up with a potential star-making race at this year's Punchestown Festival. Captain Chris, conditioned by Philip Hobbs, is being pointed towards the Ryanair Novice Chase on May 5.

The seven-year-old son of Kings Theatre continued his impressive run of form to capture the 2011 Arkle over the likes of Finian's Rainbow and Medermit. Coincidentally, he was highlighted as an outstanding selection in the Arkle on a gambling blog not a million miles away.

Speaking to the Racing Post, Hobbs was bullish about the future for the popular novice chaser. “I am very much intending to run Captain Chris, he has come out of Cheltenham really well and is doing good... He will head over to Punchestown where we hope he can run another good race.”

The softer going on offer at the Irish racecourse looks a significantly more appealing surface than the one we saw at Aintree and the popular trainer indicated this was one of the reasons why they opted for Punchestown.

It appears as though Philip Hobbs will be bringing a number of his more popular contenders to the festival this year with Wishfull Thinking set to ship shortly. Punters can expect a hefty English presence at this year's Punchestown festival with Kauto Star and several other prominent contenders set to invade to take on the who's-who of Irish jumps.