There are few certainties in sport, but the Grade 1 Faugheen Novice Chase of 2025 over its new trip of 2m 5f should go to Willie Mullins. That’s because the Closutton maestro runs three of the four runners in the feature contest during the Limerick Christmas Racing Festival on Sunday, 28 December.
Chief among those Mullins mounts and looking to establish himself at the head of pecking order is ante-post Cheltenham Festival favourite Final Demand. Already a short price to land the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase in March, the only dangers to him around Greenmount Park apparently exist within his own stable.
Final Demand ran at Limerick last Christmas over the revised Faugheen Novice Chase distance before landing two Grade 1s at the Dublin Racing and Punchestown Festivals. In-between those efforts, he finished third behind The New Lion and The Yellow Clay during the other big National Hunt horse racing gala in March.
Defeat in the Cheltenham results was no disgrace for Final Demand as he came out and bolted up later in the spring. He also delivered on chasing debut around Navan with a foot-perfect round of jumping fences. That assured display only saw his status as one of the Festival bankers harden despite being some months out from the meeting.
An impressive start from Final Demand in the Race And Stay @IrishEBF_ Beginners Chase 🏆 pic.twitter.com/ACu94NMdrp
— Navan Racecourse (@NavanRacecourse) November 16, 2025
The task for Final Demand is now to back-up his successful bow by landing this en route back to the Dublin Racing Festival, presumably in the Ladbrokes Novice Chase, before returning to Cheltenham to set the record straight upped further in distance. With bookmakers running scared of Final Demand, it’s now down to him to stamp his authority on the division.
Jimmy Du Seuil Another Mullins Mount in Faugheen Novice Chase
If he can’t justify odds-on favouritism at Limerick, it’ll be a shock, but stable companion Jimmy Du Seuil waits in the wings to capitalise. Like Final Demand, he’s a Cheltenham Festival winner after defying a lengthy racecourse absence to land the Coral Cup. There is also plenty of substance to the recent form posted by Jimmy Du Seuil.
His three-length defeat of Impose Toi in March reads well, because the runner-up has come out and won three times since. That one has progressed into a Grade 1-winning staying hurdler following success in Ascot’s Long Walk before Christmas. Jimmy Du Seuil then recorded his own impressive chasing debut around Fairyhouse.
A 9⃣0⃣0⃣th career winner for Patrick Mullins 👏
Coral Cup hero Jimmy Du Seuil shows a good aptitude for fences to bring up a milestone for a rider at the top of his game.@WillieMullinsNH | @Fairyhouse pic.twitter.com/zh3qs9HRkU
— Racing TV (@RacingTV) November 29, 2025
He gave weight and a four-length beating to useful Henry De Bromhead mare The Big Westerner. By the time the Faugheen Novice Chase takes place, she may well have added a Grade 2 to her CV as a warm favourite for the Dawn Run on Saturday’s card at Greenmount Park. The third from Fairyhouse has gone in over fences since as well.
Against a rival like Jimmy Du Seuil with smart form in the book, it’s not the formality that Cheltenham betting sites believe this to be for Final Demand. The third Mullins mount in the line-up, meanwhile, is Gigginstown House Stud’s Gold Dancer. He chased home Romeo Coolio in the Grade 1 Drinmore Novice Chase at Fairyhouse last month.
As the winner has come out and landed another top-level event at Leopardstown on Boxing Day, Gold Dancer is no back number. He has more experience of fences under his belt, but lacks the progressive profile of one run, one win in this sphere. Rank outsider Western Walk, a steeplechasing maiden completes the line-up with no realistic hopes of avoiding the wooden spoon.
