
What TV channel is the 2025 Punchestown Festival on? FREE stream, race card and times for day one
THE 2025 Punchestown Festival gets under way this afternoon with a thrilling five days of action no doubt in store for punters.
The most intrigue around Tuesday's action revolves around
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Here's the general details you need to know around the meet as a whole:
What TV channel is the Punchestown Festival on?
Tuesday will see it broadcast from 3:30pm until 6:30pm.
That pattern will be repeated across Wednesday and Thursday while it'll run from 4pm to 7pm on Friday with RTE One then showcasing the final day from 3pm until 5:45pm.
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So anyone looking for a way to stream it can do so freely via the RTE Player.
Punchestown Festival Tuesday/Day one race card:
14:30:
Kildare Hunt Club Cross Country Chase
15:05:
Albert Bartlett Triple Crown Series Final
15:40:
Killashee Hotel Handicap Hurdle (Listed)
16:15:
KPMG Champion Novice Hurdle (Grade 1)
16:50:
Dooley Insurance Group Champion Novice Chase (Grade 1)
17:25:
Goffs Defender Bumper
18:00:
William Hill Champion Chase (Grade 1)
18:35:
Willie Coonan Memorial Flat Race
Templegate tips:
The flat may be fully under way in Britain - but there is one more week of star-studded action here in Ireland.
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Exclusive
Constitution Hill, Galopin Des Champs, Kopek Des Bordes, State Man… they'll all be in action over the next five days.
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Here, Templegate goes through every race on day one, running through the big chances and
America's oldest horse racing track lays abandoned after closing down following 170 years of history
Willie Mullins looks set for another profitable week - days after clinching the UK trainer's title for the second successive week.
In his weekly column for SunSport,
He hailed: "So, Willie Mullins did it.
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"And now for history, trying to do what Vincent O'Brien never did - which is be based in Ireland and land the British Jumps Trainers' Championship three times in a row.
1
The weather around the midlands looks set to cooperate with punters all week
"Since Saturday many have questioned why the jockeys' championship is decided on wins, and the trainers' championship on prize money.
"Some believe it's wrong that Mullins can just pop in and take the big prizes, but, over the course of the season, win fewer races than in this case his arch rival Dan Skelton.
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"But there should be no meddling with the current status quo. It's all very logical when you think about it.
"A jockey's job is to win. That's it. They should go out trying to land every race that they ride in.
"The role of a trainer is different. A trainers' job is to try to gain as much prize money for their owner as they can."
He later added: "If anyone doesn't think that Willie Mullins is not the outstanding handler then they are in cloud cuckooland. He is.
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"And he's the best in Ireland. And he's the best in Great Britain. Everyone else just needs to upgrade to be better than Mullins."
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The Irish Sun
20 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
Templegate's ‘overpriced' Oaks tip, 1-2-3 prediction and complete runner-by-runner guide to £570,000 Epsom Classic
TEMPLEGATE delivers his complete guide, tip and 1-2-3 prediction for the awesome Epsom Oaks below. Nine of the finest three-year-old fillies in the land go to post for the prestigious Group 1 run over 1m4f. 1 Desert Flower has been the long-time favourite for the Oaks on the back of her dominant 1,000 Guineas victory Credit: PA He goes through each of the runners, rates them out of five stars and delivers his big-race tip at the bottom. Aidan O'Brien has dominated the Classic trials - but one legendary jockey reckons this Back any horse you fancy by clicking their odds below and check out the The action will be live on ITV1 at 4pm Friday. Epsom Derby 2025 free bets: Best new sign up offers - HERE Templegate's Oaks runner-by-runner guide and ratings DESERT FLOWER 4 FLOWER in bloom. Charlie Appleby's filly has yet to taste defeat in five starts and kept that run going with a smooth success in the 1,000 Guineas on comeback. Most read in Horse Racing She was a brilliant juvenile and took the Group 1 Fillies' Mile by five lengths after the May Hill at Donny. There's little doubt she's the best filly in the race with stamina the only question mark. She wasn't stopping at Newmarket and isn't a keen sort so isn't likely to pull her chance away. At first glance, her breeding does seem to scream a mile and the softish ground may play to more of a stayer. Despite that her class will take her close under William Buick who is a big-race jockey. ELWATEEN 5 TEEN dream. We have only seen this daughter of Dubawi twice but she has created a big impression. She won at Kempton on debut in August before Saeed Bin Suroor put her away. Her next outing was a really promising fourth in the 1,000 Guineas where she was definitely doing her best work in the closing stages. She was a little green when the pace hotted up and she will have learned plenty before being supplemented for this test. Her dam stayed 1m2f strongly in soft ground so there's every chance she'll relish this trip. Saeed is something of a forgotten trainer these days but he's got two Oaks wins from his halcyon days so knows what it takes to win. GISELLE 3 ELLE of a filly. She only had two rivals to beat in the Lingfield Oaks Trial on comeback last month but did it by nine easy lengths. She handled the track so should be fine at Epsom too. She is one of the few in the field who has no stamina doubts and there's a lot more to come. She scored on dead ground as a juvenile and has a lively each-way chance for Aidan O'Brien. GO GO BOOTS 2 KICK off Boots. Considering Oisin Murphy is on board for the Gosdens, she is big price for all she has a bit to find on form. Her third in the Musidora at York last time was far from a disgrace. She looked very much a work in progress on the Knavesmire and ran around a bit in the closing stages. That's not what you want to see before tackling tricky Epsom and she looks more suited to the Ribblesdale at Royal Ascot next month. MINNIE HAUK 3 HAUK has to fly. Ryan Moore's choice of the Aidan O'Brien trio crossed the line with plenty left when winning the Cheshire Oaks on comeback. She will definitely come on for that run and is guaranteed to see out the extra furlong here. Handling Chester often means Epsom will be fine too. On the negative side, she didn't beat a lot on the Roodee so will need to fine more form-wise although O'Brien runners often take a big step up for a run. QILIN QUEEN 2 QUEEN won't be crowned. She is progressing nicely for Ed Walker and battled all the way to win a Newbury Listed race last time. That was on the nod from Revoir who also lines up today. That was over 1m2f when she went from the front and just held on so stamina may be an issue. Either way, it's a fair leap to be winning a Classic on current form. REVOIR 3 REVVED up. The line came a stride too soon when she finished second to Qilin Queen at Newbury last time but Ralph Beckett's filly looks a hotter prospect. She came home strongly so should be suited by this step up in distance and has improvement to come after just two starts. In-form Beckett's fillies often come on significantly for a run and she's right in the each-way picture. WEMIGHTAKEDLONGWAY 2 WAY out. Add an extra star if the ground is riding genuinely soft as she relished testing conditions when winning a Navan Group 3 over 1m2f last time. That was a big improvement on her effort in the Ballysax on comeback where she looked a mile off Oaks standard. She has a fair bit to find on form so needs that downpour. WHIRL 4 GIVE it a Whirl. She may yet prove to be the best of the Aidan O'Brien runners after her easy Musidora win at York last time. That has been a useful pointer to the Oaks and she had lots of running left at the end of 1m2f so stamina shouldn't be an issue. She seems to handle any ground and looks capable of improvement under Wayne Lordan. Templegate's Oaks tip and 1-2-3 prediction SAEED Bin Suroor has got an El of a chance in the £570,000 Betfred Oaks. ELWATEEN (4.00 Epsom, nap) caught the eye with a staying-on fourth in the 1,000 Guineas and can blossom over this longer trip. She won't mind a bit of cut in the ground and can go close at decent odds under Jim Crowley. Desert Flower showed her class when winning the Guineas at Newmarket and will be hard to beat if lasting home — which isn't guaranteed on pedigree. Ryan Moore has chosen Minnie Hauk of the Aidan O'Brien trio but there isn't much between her, Giselle and Whirl who all have each-way chances. 1st Elwateen 2nd Desert Flower 3rd Whirl FREE BETS - GET THE BEST SIGN UP DEALS AND RACING OFFERS Commercial content notice: Taking one of the offers featured in this article may result in a payment to The Sun. 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The Irish Sun
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Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Eoin Morgan is just one example of why national identities are complex questions
You may have tried one of those online tests in which you're asked to watch a group of basketball players throwing the ball to each other and count the number of passes. It's only after you give your answer that you're told to watch the clip again and see if there's anything you missed. And that's when you see the man in a bear suit moonwalking across the court. Psychologists cite such cases as examples of inattentional blindness, the phenomenon whereby we fail to see something fully visible, but unexpected, right in front of us because we're focused on something else. The brain simply doesn't register the moonwalking bear; which is not quite the same as registering it but instantly discounting it for being so unbelievable in a kicking-Bishop-Brennan-up-the-backside kind of way. READ MORE It's not clear whether any of these phenomena were at play when The Irish Times invited readers recently to nominate Ireland's greatest Irish sportsperson of all time . As soon as the call went out, nominations started flying in at such a rate that we had to go back and check we hadn't accidentally offered a cash prize. As it happens, we wouldn't have had to pay up anyway, because everyone overlooked the right answer. Eoin Morgan, it seems, is a moonwalking bear. Okay, maybe we shouldn't be too emphatic about these things, but it is remarkable that not one person nominated this Dubliner. After all, who fits the criteria better than him? In terms of individual talent, he was not just thrilling but innovative, blasting huge scores with spectacular style, playing reverse sweeps with a variety and gusto never previously seen on this side of the world. For all his fireworks with the cricket bat, he is celebrated even more for his impact on the collective – changing, with fabulous moxie, a country's entire mindset about one of its national sports, inspiring a derring-do that transformed the way the one-day game was approached everywhere. And if it's silverware you want, how many other Irish people have led their team to the world title, prevailing in one of the most dramatic finals ever seen in any sport? Eoin Morgan is seen batting for England against Bangladesh at Lord's in May 2010. Photograph: Julian Herbert/Getty The fact that victory in the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup came on the back of ignominious elimination from the 2015 edition only adds to the appeal of Morgan's achievement, as, of course, does his background long before that: because if against-the-odds triumphs are your thing, the story of the boy from Rush, Co Dublin, who grew up to be hailed by England (and paid fortunes by sides from India to Australia) for transforming cricket is not easily beaten. Yet, it seems, the other sense in which Morgan is outstanding is that he doesn't even enter people's minds when it came to thinking of the greatest Irish sportsperson. No doubt that's down to folks concentrating on a criterion we didn't mention: the identity of the teams played for. Do we deny Morgan his Irishness because he played most of his career with England, the country of his mother's birth and a country that, given cricket's system at the time, offered a career that Ireland couldn't? If asked for a list of great tennis-playing Czechs, would you omit Martina Navratilova? Should Eusébio, the star of the 1966 World Cup with Portugal, have eschewed international football until his native Mozambique gained independence (by which time he was 33)? Whether due to political arrangements, family history or offbeat happenstance, national identities are complex and subject to evolution. Why refuse to recognise that? This is a pertinent question in today's Ireland. If a person is born in Borris-in-Ossory to a Cameroonian father and a French mother, what nationality should they feel? Surely that depends on many things, most of them unique to that person. One thing's for certain, it's not a mathematical question. If they felt like parsing their identity into fractions, fine. But if they considered themselves 100 per cent Irish, 100 per cent Cameroonian and 100 per cent French, then that'd be fair enough too. Or to put it another way, who is more Irish: Conor McGregor or his fellow Crumlin native Roberto 'Pico' Lopes, the Shamrock Rovers stalwart who plays international football for Cape Verde? The answer's obvious unless you're looking to cause trouble. How about Dennis Cirkin, the 23-year-old full-back who's been called up to the Republic of Ireland squad for Friday's friendly with Senegal? Born in Dublin to Latvian parents, with whom he moved to London when he was aged three, he is eligible to represent three countries. Sunderland's Dennis Cirkin applauds fans at the Stadium of Light. Photograph: Will Matthews/PA Maybe he could swap perspectives with some of Friday's opposition; Senegal having finally been crowned African champions in 2021, with a team half consisting of players born elsewhere, including captain Kalidou Koulibaly, who had played in the Under-20 World Cup for France. If Cirkin plays his way into a position where he has to pick who to play for in a competitive match, he'll have to squeeze himself into one shirt forever. And that shows up a way Fifa is failing us. Yes, another one. As the custodians of the most popular sport on the planet, Fifa has a responsibility to lead on important matters, as opposed to lag behind. We say important matters, but really Fifa has it easy when it comes to issues of nationality because the consequences of their decisions aren't as heavy those of immigration authorities, for instance. There's nothing noble stopping Fifa from leaning into openness. One of the contradictions of Gianni Infantino's Fifa is that as it expands the World Cup to include as many countries as possible, it also enforces an uncomfortably narrow understanding of national identity. Pick one country and stick with it forever. What good reason is there for saying Cirkin can never represent Latvia if he appears in one competitive international for Ireland or England? Of course, just like VAR in football has to draw an offside line somewhere, there has to be some form of national eligibility boundary or the system would be unworkable: we probably shouldn't have a situation where players could switch from one country to another at half-time if they felt like it. But why must the cut be permanent? How about limiting a pledge of oneness to one tournament cycle? That way, for instance, if winger Nico Williams decided one day that, having delivered glory with Spain, he felt like playing for Ghana with his brother Iñaki, then he could do so. It may be too late for any such change to take effect in time for the 2026 World Cup in North America. But it's high time Fifa put its mind to seeing the moonwalking bear and recognising that people contain multitudes.