WEATHER permitting, what a weekend we have in store at the Navan Racing Festival. From Kopek Des Bordes to Marine Nationale, Final Demand, Dinoblue, Captain Guinness, The Yellow Clay, Solness and plenty more in between, an array of National Hunt stars are waiting to come out on show.

Fingers crossed a wet and wild few days don’t wreak havoc for the Co Meath track’s marquee winter weekend.

Sunday’s €100,000 Bar One Racing Troytown Handicap Chase (2.32) is officially the feature of the two days, and one contender bound to relish conditions is the Terence O’Brien-trained Answer To Kayf.

Each of the smart chaser’s three wins have come on ground with the word ‘soft’ or ‘heavy’ in the going description, and he now looks to be back on his favoured conditions after finishing down the field on good to soft and yielding at the Cheltenham and Punchestown Festivals the last twice.

Gordon Elliott is so often the man to follow in this race - responsible for the winner in seven of the last 11 renewals - but it’s Willie Mullins, Gavin Cromwell and Noel Meade who dominate the early market with Quai De Bourbon, Will The Wise and Sportinthepark respectively. Could O’Brien’s lightly raced nine-year-old be the one, however, to take the Grade 3 prize back to Co Cork?

“He’s been quite good through the last while,” O’Brien told The Irish Field.

“It’s obviously his first run of the season and you’d wonder how he’ll fare taking on race-fit horses on what will now be heavy ground after all this rain. I think he’s as good as we can have him, though. He seems to be in great form.

“Look, he’s rated 141, so does that probably mean we’ve got to run to 148 or above to win it? Can he do that on his first run back? We’ll have to see but I do know that the conditions should be in his favour and he’s in good nick.”

O’Brien has only had three previous cracks at the Troytown in his career and has gone mightily close on two of them, finishing second and third with the likeable Glenquest in 2010 and 2012.

Course form

In fact, the Carrigtwohill handler has an excellent record in Navan handicap chases from a very small sample size. From a total of 17 runners in that category of race at the track, O’Brien has recorded five winners, two seconds, three thirds and a fourth.

It is a sign of how far the quality of Ireland’s valuable handicap chases have come, too, that Glenquest wouldn’t have been close to being in this year’s handicap based on his rating of 117 when placed in the race twice before. The final horse fitting correctly in the 2025 handicap is Fortunedefortunata off a rating of 127 (10st 2lb).

“They were different times, and I’ve often wondered how that has happened with horses creeping up the ratings for handicaps like this over the years,” O’Brien added. “I can remember Robert Tyner training the winner of the Paddy Power with very lowly-rated mares, relative to what you’d expect now [Call Me Dara won when rated 95 in 2000 and I Can Imagine won with a rating of 92 in 2001].”

O’Brien has one other runner on the weekend, promising Gowran maiden hurdle runner-up Leonard Vallis in Saturday’s concluding bumper (3.55). The Doctor Dino four-year-old cost €75,000 as a store at last year’s Goffs Arkle Sale.

“He had a nice run on his debut, but the form of that race might be a bit iffy, with the winner well beaten next time out,” said the trainer. “I do like this horse, though. He’s probably a bit of a project in the making. I think he’ll be very nice in time. How long it takes to show that fully, I’m not sure, but his work is good and I think he should handle the ground.”