FINAL Demand, Kitzbuhel and Kaid d’Authie feature in high-class entries for the WillowWarm Gold Cup at the Fairyhouse Easter Festival, while 2024 Aintree hero I Am Maximus tops the weights for the BoyleSports Irish Grand National Chase the following day.

The meeting begins on Saturday, April 4th, featuring the Rybo Handicap Hurdle, which provided a feel-good factor last year when won by Harry Rogers’ 12-year-old veteran Lord Erskine. He features in the preliminary entries 12 months on, alongside the 2025 runner-up, Noel Meade’s brilliant dual-purpose campaigner Helvic Dream.

Zanoosh was also successful at last year’s meeting, getting off the mark in the mares’ bumper, and Colm Murphy’s mare has gone from strength to strength since, having won her last four starts over hurdles, including wins at listed and Grade 3 level.

The progressive six-year-old is set to step up in class on Easter Sunday, April 5th, featuring among 26 entries for the Grade 1 Irish Stallion Farms EBF Honeysuckle Mares Novice Hurdle.

Willie Mullins has won the last four runnings of the race and dominates the 2026 entries with nine, including Bambino Fever, who bids to bounce back from a disappointing run on good ground at Cheltenham.

Her old rival Oldschool Outlaw, who finished second in the Ryanair Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle, having won her first three hurdle starts, is one of three entries from Gordon Elliott.

Fergal O’Brien finished second in the mares’ Grade 1 last year and is set to return to Fairyhouse next month, with Sixmilebridge entered in the WillowWarm Gold Cup, after skipping Cheltenham due to the drying ground.

The Scilly Isles’ winner bids to become the second British winner of the Grade 1, 10 years after Kerry Lee crashed the party with Kylemore Lough. Willie Mullins has won six of the last seven runnings – Spillane’s Tower ruined his sequence two years ago, and Jimmy Mangan has entered Pure Steel in a bid to repeat the feat. Mullins’s 12 entries boast the quality you would expect, with Final Demand, Jimmy Du Seuil, Kaid d’Authie, Kappa Jy Pyke, Kitzbuhel and Salvator Mundi. The Big Westerner and Koktail Divin are among four from the Henry de Bromhead yard, while Gordon Elliott has put forward Jacob’s Ladder, Kala Conti, King Of Kingsfield and Western Fold but told The Nick Luck Podcast yesterday that Cheltenham disappointment Romeo Cooio may be finished for the season.

The main event

J.P. McManus, whose previous winners include Gilgamboa and Like-A-Butterfly, is also represented at entry stage by Oscars Brother, who also has the option of the BoyleSports Irish Grand National the following day. The sponsors have introduced Connor King’s stable star as the 10/1 favourite for the Fairyhouse showpiece

The Robert Tyner-trained Better Times Ahead is another prominently in the early betting, and is one of 12 entries owned by J.P. McManus, also including top-weight I Am Maximus and Colm Murphy’s Leinster National runner-up Goraibhmaithagat.

Nicky Henderson has entered Holloway Queen off the back of her Cheltenham Festival success in the National Hunt Challenge Cup, and she is among the market leaders, as is Ben Pauling’s Reynoldstown Chase victor The Jukebox Kid.

Last year’s Irish Grand National winner, Haiti Couleurs also came here following a win in the National Hunt Cup – a race in which stablemate Newton Tornado was sent off 13/2 last week. Pulled up after jumping poorly that day, he has been entered by Rebecca Curtis in the hopes of winning the €500,000 feature for the second year in a row.

Ireland’s richest jumps race adds interest to the Irish trainers’ championship, and Gordon Elliott has entered 15 in a bid to extend his lead over Willie Mullins, who has 20 entered.