Disclaimer: Compulsive gambling can harm your health and relationships, and leave you in serious debt. If you have a problem with gambling and you’d like to stop, support and treatment is available. To find information, support and counselling on gambling addiction, please visit the NHS website: www.bit.ly/NHSGambling

THE start of the Dublin Racing Festival alongside Sandown Park and Musselburgh makes this the penultimate big weekend of Cheltenham Festival trials before Super Saturday at Newbury.

However, there are big prizes to be won in their own right this afternoon with the Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown the standout one on offer.

The extended three-mile contest at 3.05 at Leopardstown will be the biggest test for Galopin Des Champs in his brief career, but it is worth noting that this isn’t the deepest renewal of this famous contest and if he can’t win a race of this nature then the stiffer test that awaits at Cheltenham could prove beyond him.