Irish racing will have a much busier week than planned in the lead-up to Christmas. Punchestown will stage its rescheduled Grade 1 John Durkan card on Monday and the track was described as raceable on Sunday afternoon.

The going is yielding, yielding to soft in places, with showers forecast for Sunday night and into Monday.

The feature race has attracted a field of seven including current Cheltenham Gold Cup favourite Galopin Des Champs. Trained by Willie Mullins, the six-year-old won three of his four starts as a novice last season.

Following two very impressive performances at Leopardstown in December and February, Galopin Des Champs went to Cheltenham as odds-on favourite for the Turners Novice Chase and would have run out a wide-margin winner but for a final fence fall. He subsequently recorded an easy win in Grade 1 company at the Punchestown Festival.

Galopin Des Champs is generally a 1/3 shot to win at Punchestown on Monday. Second favourite is the Joseph O'Brien-trained Fakir D'oudairies (4/1), a four-time Grade 1 winner over fences himself.

RTÉ will show Monday’s big race from Punchestown on its news channel. RTÉ News Now can be found on Sky 517 and Virgin 200. Coverage will start at 2pm with commentary from Richard Pugh. The race is due off at 2.10pm.

Naas plans to race on Tuesday, having lost its Thursday slot this week. Naas has called a precautionary inspection for 10am on Monday. If racing goes ahead at Naas, the card will include the Grade 2 Tote Navan Novice Hurdle as an eighth race with original declarations to stand.

Fairyhouse will race on Wednesday, a meeting to replace the Saturday meeting it lost. Added to the Fairyhouse card as an eighth race is the NavanRacecourse.ie Rated Novice Chase. This race will revert back to entries at weights stage and will close for fresh declarations, along with the rest of the Fairyhouse card, by 10am on Monday.

Dundalk also race next Wednesday, as planned.

Finally, as the Grade B Bective Stud Tea Rooms Handicap Hurdle was unable to be held at Navan this wekeend, the Pertemps Network Handicap Hurdle (Qualifier) due to be held at Leopardstown on Wednesday, December 28th, will now have a value of €50,000 (up from €30,000)