CLOSE to 100 people from the racing world turned out at Café En Seine in Dublin’s Dawson Street on Wednesday evening for the press launch of the BoyleSports Irish Grand National and Easter Festival at Fairyhouse. The three-day meeting starts next Saturday.

Among the special guests were Cheltenham heroes Willie Mullins and Paul Townend. MC David Jennings congratulated Willie, not only on his success across the water, but also on a “beautiful” interview he gave to Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ Radio 1 last Sunday morning.

Willie replied: “Nick Luck is always trying to get me to appear on his Luck On Sunday show but Sunday morning is my one break in the week, so I always decline ... but Miriam caught me on the hop and you can’t say ‘no’ to Miriam!”

In his chat with Miriam, the trainer spoke fondly of his late mother, Maureen, and how he missed not being able to call her after Cheltenham to discuss everything that had happened at the meeting. It’s worth a listen on the RTÉ Player.

Back to the Fairyhouse reception, where Paul Townend told guests the only pressure he felt last week was when queueing at Birmingham Airport on Friday night to get home. That airport chaos was also covered in a column by Frank McNally in The Irish Times this week.

Retired commentator Dessie Scahill had guests laughing as he recalled the difficulty in calling some Irish Nationals in which Gigginstown and J.P. McManus has multiple runners.

“One year, I think J.P. had 10 runners,” Dessie said. “After the race I was gasping when I bumped into [racing manager] Frank Berry. Frank said they would have run more but they ran out of caps!”

On to next weekend’s race and the tips came thick and fast. The Willie Mullins-trained Nick Rockett has already halved in price from 8/1 to 4/1 but handicapper Sandy Shaw likes the look of stable companion We’llhavewan towards the bottom of the weights.

Trainer Tom Gibney is hopeful about his French import Intense Raffles if the ground stays soft, while Grand National-winning jockey Ricky Doyle is quite confident that Martin Brassil’s Kerry National winner Desertmore House will run a big race if it dries up a little.

Gavin Cromwell wouldn’t put you off his Haydock winner Yeah Man and Barry Geraghty noted how Ted Walsh’s veteran Any Second Now has been shown some mercy by the handicapper and shouldn’t be dismissed.

Fairyhouse manager Peter Roe has a soft spot for course specialist Where’s Frankie. Karl Thornton’s runner will be one of the rank outsiders but, as Peter reminded everyone, this race has a habit of producing fairytale results.

Finally, Willie Mullins was asked for his best bet of the Easter weekend and his reply was “Whatever Patrick rides in the bumper!”