The Punchestown Festival ended on Saturday with the most dramatic result of its final afternoon. Place De La Nation, at 10-1, beat Wodhooh in the SBK Irish EBF Mares Champion Hurdle. Wodhooh had won the Cheltenham Mares’ Hurdle in March and arrived at Punchestown as the clear market leader.
She did not win.
In the later race, Saratoga won the Ballymore Champion Four Year Old Hurdle (Grade 1) at 9-2, ridden by Mark Walsh and trained by Padraig Roche. The margin was three and three-quarter lengths. It was Roche’s first Grade 1 win as a trainer.
The Punchestown Festival is over for another year. Willie Mullins, as is customary, leaves County Kildare with more Grade 1 winners than any other trainer.
Mares’ Hurdle: Place De La Nation Upsets the Favourite
The SBK Irish EBF Mares Champion Hurdle was supposed to provide the chapter where Wodhooh extended her record. She had won at Cheltenham in March, had ten wins from eleven career starts, and arrived as the market leader by some distance.
Place De La Nation, a 10-1 shot in the Mullins yard, had other ideas.
The race description tells the story neatly. Tracking leaders, third at halfway, pushed along entering the straight, headway to dispute the lead approaching the final flight, ridden to lead 100 yards from the post and kept on well.
Jade De Grugy finished second. Wodhooh, the beaten favourite, came home further back.
The upset carries a sharp lesson. Cheltenham form, even at Grade 1 level, does not automatically transfer to Punchestown. The two tracks are different. The ground is different. The pace patterns are different. Wodhooh had won the Mares’ Hurdle twice at the Festival this season and at Cheltenham in March, but the Punchestown version of the race found out something the Cheltenham version did not.
This is not a crisis for the Wodhooh camp. She is an exceptional mare. But Place De La Nation, at 10-1, was better on the day and that is the result that will stand.
4YO Hurdle: Saratoga Delivers
The Ballymore Champion Four Year Old Hurdle (Grade 1) produced the more expected result. Saratoga, the 9-2 favourite, won by three and three-quarter lengths in the hands of Mark Walsh for trainer Padraig Roche.
Roche’s first Grade 1 win as a trainer.
Saratoga had won the Fred Winter Juvenile Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival earlier this year. That performance established him as the leading four-year-old hurdler heading into this race. He backed it up at Punchestown with a clear, dominant display.
Three and three-quarter lengths at Grade 1 level is not a tight margin. Saratoga was the best four-year-old in the race and the result reflects that. For connections, the next question is what comes next in the summer and autumn programme.
The Festival in Numbers
The 2026 Punchestown Festival ran from April 28 to May 2. As in recent years, Willie Mullins finished as champion trainer. The Grade 1 races across the five days were dominated by the Mullins operation, with Lossiemouth winning the Boodles Champion Hurdle on Friday evening, Place De La Nation taking the Mares’ Grade 1 on Saturday, and Saratoga adding the 4YO for Mark Walsh.
The festival produced two upset results that will be discussed through the summer: Place De La Nation’s Mares’ Hurdle and, earlier in the week, Punchestown Chase results that went against shorter-priced favourites.
TradeOnSports Verdict
Place De La Nation at 10-1 represents the kind of result that punters who follow trainer patterns and seasonal form can identify. Mullins runs horses at Punchestown in races they are built for, and the 10-1 price in the Mares’ Hurdle, for a horse trained by the leading trainer at the festival’s home track, reflected market respect for Wodhooh more than genuine analysis of Place De La Nation’s chances.
She won. By clear daylight. The odds were wrong.
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