Sir Gerhard

The hot favourite for the Punchestown Champion Novice Hurdle, Sir Gerhard, doubles up as the most backed horse for the first day of the festival since final declarations for the day's racing were made on Sunday. 

The Willie Mullins trained seven-year-old is three from three over hurdles and eased to a 3 ½ length victory over Three Stripe Life in the Ballymore at Cheltenham. 

As in the build-up to Cheltenham, there was plenty of talk about the choice of race for Sir Gerhard before Mullins confirmed that he would come back down to two miles.

Mullins said: "I had it in the back of my mind for a while that I really wanted to go two miles with Sir Gerhard here. He has plenty of speed in his pedigree and this will be a good test to see where we might head with him next year."

Largely unchallenged at Cheltenham, he will line up against Dysart Dynamo - a heavy faller three out in the Supreme as a 9/4 joint favourite - but that hasn't deterred the oddschecker community. 

At the time of writing, he has taken 18.77% of the bets across all races on Tuesday and a huge 81.62% of the bets on the Champion Novice Hurdle.

Energumene

Energumene is chasing more glory at Punchestown in the William Hill Champion Chase, 12 months on from landing the Ryanair Novice Chase at the same meeting.

He has not raced since romping to victory in the Champion Chase at Cheltenham (8 ½l) ahead of nearest challenger Funambule Sivola after a disappointing early exit for Nicky Henderson’s much-fancied Shishkin – pulled up quickly after the eighth fence. 

With Shishkin now sidelined with a rare bone condition, Energumene has emerged as the clear frontrunner for one of the day's headline Grade 1 races.

As part of his prediction piece, Stu Williams explains why Energumene is the one to beat despite the presence of Champion Chase third Envoi Allen, last year’s Arkle third Captain Guinness and Grand Annual runner-up Andy Dufresne.

He has featured in 14.11% of all betslips for Tuesday’s races at Punchestown through oddschecker and has 72.11% backing for the Champion Chase (Chacun Pour Soi second most with 23.52%).

Bob Olinger

A clearly fortuitous winner in the Turners Novices’ Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, Bob Olinger backers will be happy to know that he does not have to contend with Galopin Des Champs in the Punchestown Champion Novice Chase. 

His closest competitor at Punchestown could well be Capodanno, who made little impression en route to a fourth place finish in the Brown Advisory, won so impressively by L’Homme Presse.

Bob Olinger also beat Capodanno by 4 ¾ lengths in the Kildare Novice Chase at Punchestown as recently as January. He has been backed in 64.73% of the betslips for the race through oddschecker.