Cheltenham Festival | Horse Racing Free Tips

Cheltenham Was Always About the Horses and Britain Has Lost Ground

When I started covering the Cheltenham Festival in the late 1980s it was still a place of myth and legend: whiskey priests, all-night card schools, hopeful (but not expectant) Irish pilgrimages, farmers with chances of winning a race and wince-inducing whip-use up the hill.

It was a place chiefly for aficionados – the county set and jump racing hardcore, leavened with once-a-year urban tweedies who loved the racing and knew what it meant to watch Dawn Run win both a Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup.

A place, in other words, for disciples, with newsworthy battles between rails bookmakers and big hitters, which the outside world peered at excitedly but fleetingly. The Cheltenham Festival made the front pages because it was edgy, rooted, fragrant, intense and magical. It united the human and animal kingdoms like no other sport. The Grand National was a national ritual, but it didn't shine a light on our culture the way Cheltenham did.

We've come a long way since then. The modern Cheltenham is entertainment industry giant, mass market day out, commercial behemoth, and these days, a place of plunder for Irish yards, principally that of Willie Mullins, who won nine of this year's 27 races, including the two defining events with State Man (Champion Hurdle) and Galopin Des Champs (Gold Cup).

More than ever, Cheltenham is subject to modern economic reality. On the track we see a concentration of power into a few hands and a switch to recruitment, scouting and academy-based success. This, aside from the training skill, is the foundation of Mullins's success – a pre-emptive odds-loading in his favour. An astonishing tally of 103 Festival winners suggests Mullins' networking has caught many of his rivals cold.

Ireland's latest training win over GB yards by 18-9 in the Prestbury Cup has caused alarm at the British Horseracing Authority, whose chief executive Julie Harrington said in a statement the morning after the Gold Cup…

“I have no doubt that the men and women who train horses here in Britain are more than a match for their Irish counterparts. However, they need the ammunition and at present the balance of power and the best horses are going to our colleagues in Ireland, and in particular one yard…..
“However, the Irish domination of the Grade 1 races this week has illustrated that the issue is becoming more pronounced and more damaging for the sport on both sides of the Irish sea.

“Put simply, the rate of decline of Jump racing in Britain at the top end has outstripped the measures that have been put in place to tackle it. We must do more, more quickly, and in a more coordinated and decisive manner if we are going to restore British Jump racing to the standing at which it belongs.”

In other words – it's an emergency. Off the track meanwhile Cheltenham can no longer expect legions of revellers to arrive on autopilot. Like the Ryder Cup in golf, the Festival became drunk on the notion of infinite expansion and untouchable popularity. To the addicted, the last race on Friday triggers a kind of melancholia about the length of the wait for the next Festival to come around. But not even the imperishable charm of that great Cotswold playground can guarantee its survival as an annual must-go event.

First, the experience. Muddy and gridlocked car parks are not to the modern consumer's taste. Nor is a £7.50 pint you have to queue for 20 minutes to get. Nor is a lack of places to sit. Nor, you might argue, are small fields or the Mullins dominance. It's hard to disentangle anxiety about Cheltenham's importance as a shop window from wider worries about the health of National Hunt racing.

Cheltenham is not to blame for much of this. Climate change and £700 hotel room rates are not their fault. Sport's post-Covid spike is over. The racecourse is promising to freeze ticket prices and stop car parks becoming swamps. They insist there is “no complacency.”

Grumbles about the cost of food and drink can be heard across all British sports. And each pays a price for the shambles that our rail network has become. Cost of living pressures are not just Radio 4 news headlines. They force choices on people: what to stick with, what to give up.

In that context the drop in attendance at this year's Festival was relatively modest. Crowds were down 11,000 from 240,603 in 2023 to 229,370 this year. But if the lesson is that Cheltenham will have to sing for its supper like every other major sporting event then the signs of a downturn in public interest may turn out to be cathartic.

There is a deeply optimistic note in what we saw this year. For some, Cheltenham is about the gambling, drinking, eating and cavorting. For my money it was always about the horses. The romance end of the market survives. Fiona Needham winning the Foxhunters' with a £2,400 horse (Sine Nomine) 22 years after she won the race as a jockey was a throwback tale.

And for all the misgivings about Cheltenham becoming the Willie Mullins show, he sent some magnificent horses out for our entertainment: State Man, Ballyburn, Fact To File and above all Galopin Des Champs, whose victory in the hundredth anniversary Gold Cup was a thing of beauty. That's what Cheltenham is, right there.

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Galopin Des Champs Seals Golden Week For Mullins, Again

CHELTENHAM, UK–Believe it or not, Willie Mullins drew a blank on day three of the 2024 Cheltenham Festival, with Capodanno (Fr) (Manduro {Ger}) and Jade De Grugy (Fr) (Doctor Dino {Fr}) faring best of their trainer's 11 runners on that card when finishing fourth in their respective races.

Twenty-four hours without a winner at the Festival is a long time in Willie's world, the one in which he hit the target six times across the first two days of the meeting. Thankfully for him after Thursday's 'drought', there was a strong case to be made that the team he'd assembled for day four was his most formidable yet, certainly numerically as his 25 runners on the card surpassed the 20 he saddled on Wednesday. It also took the total number of horses he ran this week to a scarcely believable 75.

There was a time when having 75 runners at the Cheltenham Festival in a lifetime would have been a notable achievement for a trainer, but Mullins has a habit of making the extraordinary look ordinary, with no better example than the milestone he celebrated on Wednesday when saddling his 100th winner at the meeting.

As for extraordinary equine talent, there are few better examples around at present than Galopin Des Champs (Fr), who led the Mullins battalions into war on Friday when tasked with trying to defend the G1 Cheltenham Gold Cup crown he won so impressively in 2023.

It looked a deep Gold Cup on paper with six other top-level winners featuring in an 11-strong field but, just like his trainer, Galopin Des Champs is capable of making remarkable feats of brilliance look rather routine, arriving at Cheltenham this year with eight Grade 1 wins to his name already and being backed into odds-on favouritism as if a ninth was in no doubt whatsoever.

Any punters who took the short odds wouldn't have had too many anxious moments in the race itself, bar the presence of the loose Fastorslow (Fr) (Saint Des Saints {Fr})–who unseated J. J. Slevin early on the final circuit–as the field kicked for home on the run from four out.

From there Galopin Des Champs gradually moved up to press L'Homme Presse (Fr) (Diamond Boy {Fr}) at the head of affairs and it was all but over as a contest when he moved to the front with a typically fluent jump two out, ultimately winning by three and a half lengths from Gerri Colombe (Fr) (Saddler Maker {Ire}) having drawn right away on the approach to the last.

“I just think he put himself in the superstar category, to do what he did in the way that he did it,” Mullins said of the winner afterwards. “I think we have to say, we're coming back next year to try to win a third one if we can. He has the ability to do it–he just has to stay sound, I think.”

The eight-year-old was providing both Mullins and jockey Paul Townend with their fourth Gold Cup victories apiece, having matched the two wins of the stable's Al Boum Photo (Fr) (Buck's Boum {Fr}) in 2019 and 2020. Mullins is also unique now as the only trainer to have saddled two different multiple winners of the sport's blue riband.

As for Galopin Des Champs, he too is totally unique in being the only progeny of any real note produced by the late Timos (Ger), who put up one of his best efforts as a racehorse when filling the runner-up spot in the 2010 G2 Grand Prix de Chantilly for trainer Thierry Doumen.

Doumen stood Timos himself as a stallion before selling him to Tunisia at a time when Galopin Des Champs was yet to arrive on the scene to put his sire's name in lights. Timos later moved to Libya where he sadly died, with the circumstances of his death being described as “shady” by Doumen when speaking to The Nick Luck Daily Podcast in March last year.

Galopin Des Champs might well be the first and last Cheltenham Festival sired by Timos, but the winner of the St. James's Place Festival Challenge Cup Open Hunters' Chase that followed, Sine Nomine (GB), came from a much more familiar source in the shape of Haras de la Tuilerie resident Saint Des Saints (Fr).

Already twice on the scoreboard on Thursday with Monmiral (Fr) and Protektorat (Fr), Saint Des Saints's tally of three winners saw him share bragging rights among the leading stallions at this year's Festival with Flemensfirth, who was represented by the Grade 1 winners Ballyburn (Ire) and Grey Dawning (Ire), plus Ben Pauling's TrustATrader Plate Handicap Chase hero Shakem Up'Arry (Ire).

Dual champion sire Flemensfirth was a big loss to the Coolmore National Hunt ranks when he died in May 2023, having been retired from active stud duties in 2020, and so too Milan (GB) when he passed in 2022. Champion National Hunt sire himself in the 2019/20 season, Milan added to his list of Festival winners in this year's finale as Better Days Ahead (Ire)–a £350,000 purchase at the 2022 Tattersalls Cheltenham Festival Sale–ran out a determined winner of the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle for Gordon Elliott and promising young rider Danny Gilligan.

G1 Stayers' Hurdle-winning trainer Elliott finished the meeting with three winners having also struck in the G1 Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle earlier on Friday's card with Stellar Story (Ire). By Shantou–the leading sire at last year's Festival with two winners– the Gigginstown House Stud-owned Stellar Story was another six-figure purchase at the 2022 Tattersalls Cheltenham Festival Sale when selling for £310,000.

Grange Stud's Walk In The Park (Ire) is the standout name among the stallions still plying their trade on the Coolmore National Hunt roster and his two winners at this year's Festival were notable for both being out of the same mare, Sway (Fr) (Califet {Fr}), who was a Listed winner over hurdles at Auteuil as a three-year-old.

Having subsequently raced in Britain in the familiar silks of J. P. McManus, Sway is now proving herself a prolific producer for her powerful owner with five winners from six foals to have raced. Inothewayurthinkin (Ire) looked potentially the pick of them so far when running away with Thursday's Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup Amateur Jockeys' Handicap Chase, though his full-sister Limerick Lace (Ire) might have something say about that after she led home a one-two for McManus when seeing off Dinoblue (Fr) (Doctor Dino {Fr}) to win the G2 Mrs Paddy Power Mares' Chase on Friday's card. Both winners were trained by Gavin Cromwell.

McManus also won the G1 JCB Triumph Hurdle which kicked off the final day of the meeting with the Mullins-trained Majborough (Fr). Like Timos, Majborough's sire, Martinborough (Jpn), might be a new name to many National Hunt enthusiasts, a Japanese Group 3 winner who is based at Haras de la Baie in France. He's certainly thrown up a good one in Majborough, though, a four-year-old who had previously been described as a Gold Cup horse of the future by Mullins and certainly looked a horse with plenty of talent when overhauling stablemate Kargese (Fr) (Jeu St Eloi {Fr}) to win the premier Grade 1 event for juveniles.

“He's a chaser, isn't he?” said Mullins after the victory. “When he came into the yard and they said he was our Triumph Hurdle horse, I said I thought he was a Gold Cup horse, a three-mile chaser. He's very 'trained' at the moment, a bit angular, like all the French horses. But when he comes in from a summer's grass, he will be some beast.”

That, of course, was winner number 101 at the Festival for Mullins, who wasted no time adding to his unprecedented tally in the BetMGM County Handicap Hurdle as Absurde (Fr) (Fastnet Rock {Aus}) finished best of all to deny Dan Skelton's L'Eau Du Sud (Fr) (Lord Du Sud {Fr}).

It was a rare moment of agony in an otherwise jubilant week for Skelton and it was rather fitting that it should be provided by Mullins. The pair topped the training charts at the end of the Festival with nine wins for Mullins to Skelton's four, a British stable fighting back but just not able to match the might of the Closutton machine which has now churned out 103 Festival winners–and counting–with few better than the exceptional dual Gold Cup hero Galopin Des Champs.

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Skelton Takes Trainers’ Championship Lead As Brits Fight Back

CHELTENHAM, UK–St Patrick's Thursday at the 2024 Cheltenham Festival could turn out to be a pivotal day in the career of Dan Skelton, with the prize-money pocketed by his two winners–taking his overall tally for the week to four–seeing him leapfrog his long-time mentor Paul Nicholls in the battle to be crowned champion trainer in Britain.

Skelton had been the one man to put up any resistance to the Irish on Wednesday's card when winning the Coral Cup Handicap Hurdle with Langer Dan (Ire) (Ocovango {GB}) and the Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Chase with Unexpected Party (Fr) (Martaline {GB}). Those two wins took Skelton's career tally at the Festival to eight, no mean feat for a trainer in just his eleventh full season with a licence.

It's days like this one which Skelton has been longing for, though. Few would argue that he's one of the best around when it comes to priming a horse for a Festival handicap, but in the Grade 1 races at the meeting, the contests every trainer wants to be involved in, he'd been resigned to little more than a bit-part role in his career thus far.

That was until the Turners Novices' Chase which kicked off Thursday's card, featuring the best novices chasers over an intermediate trip that Britain and Ireland had to offer and a sparkling winner in Grey Dawning (Ire). He gained his first win at the top level at the expense of Ginny's Destiny (Ire) (Yeats {Ire}) and Djelo (Fr) (Montmartre {Fr}), with a shocking turn of events seeing the home team complete a clean sweep of the podium places having trailed the Irish 10-3 on the scoreboard after the first two days.

With the trainers' championship on the line, it won't have been lost on Skelton that the runner-up was trained by Nicholls, the 14-time champion to whom he was assistant during the glory years when the Ditcheat stable won three successive renewals of the Cheltenham Gold Cup courtesy of Kauto Star (2007 and 2009) and Denman (2008).

Now, Skelton has his sights set on Nicholls's crown, not to mention the 2025 Gold Cup with the dashing Grey Dawning, a son of the late Flemensfirth–Coolmore's dual champion National Hunt sire who has already produced one Gold Cup winner in Imperial Commander (Ire), the horse who memorably toppled Kauto Star and Denman in 2010.

“He's a lovely horse, isn't he?” Skelton said of Grey Dawning. “We had such hopes for him. When you go and win two bumpers at the start of your life and you're destined to be a chaser, you just want it to happen. To win a Grade 1 novice here is great. It gives us all that future to look forward to and, being that colour [grey], he might get a following.”

Bred at Grange Stud, Grey Dawning was bought for €40,000 at the Tattersalls Ireland June Derby Sale as a three-year-old and now carries the colours of Robert Kirkland, no doubt at the envy of John Hales. After all, nobody covets a top-class jumping grey quite like Hales, the proud owner of star performers in that image such as Al Ferof (Fr), Neptune Collonges (Fr), Politologue (Fr) and, of course, his beloved One Man (Ire).

It remains Hales's dream to win the Gold Cup, one of the few major steeplechases in Britain to have eluded him, and it was that lifetime ambition which fuelled his decision to partner with Sir Alex Ferguson, Ged Mason and Peter Done in the €740,000 purchase of the exciting Caldwell Potter (Fr) (Martaline {GB}) at last month's Caldwell Construction Dispersal at Tattersalls Ireland.

The fact Caldwell Potter was grey might also have had something to do with it, though Hales hasn't been afraid to diversify his interests, as the two races which followed Grey Dawning's victory in the Turners showed.

Envy quickly turned to joy for Hales as his own yellow colours with a red star were first carried to victory in the Pertemps Network Final Handicap Hurdle by the black Monmiral (Fr) and then in the G1 Ryanair Chase by the bay Protektorat (Fr), who was gaining a deserved first success at the Festival having finished third in 2022 and fifth in 2023 when bidding to deliver his owner's Gold Cup dream.

The victory of the Nicholls-trained Monmiral was a timely reminder that he won't be giving up his champion trainer crown without a fight, but Protektorat's defeat of defending Ryanair champion Envoi Allen (Fr) (Muhtathir {GB}) was enough to take Skelton to the top of the current standings. Master and apprentice look set to be locked in a titanic battle for the rest of the season, but on St Patrick's Thursday they combined to provide a red-letter day for Hales, plus fellow owners Ferguson and Mason.

“I've been in racing now for 25 years and it's the first time I've ever done a double at Cheltenham,” said an elated Hales. “To win once is a privilege; to do it twice is just unbelievable. He [Protektorat] was brilliant today and I can't speak highly enough of the two trainers and our two winners, because they are a dream come true.”

The dream run Ferguson and Mason have enjoyed in recent months shows no signs of slowing down. Thursday's double follows hot on the heels of two notable Flat wins on the international stage with Ferguson's progressive homebred Spirit Dancer (GB) (Frankel {GB}), successful in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia from his last three starts.

Not to be outdone, Ferguson's former sparring partner in the Premier League managerial ranks, Harry Redknapp, was also among the owners celebrating on St Patrick's Thursday after the Ben Pauling-trained Shakem Up'Arry (Ire) had run out an emphatic winner of the TrustATrader Plate Handicap Chase.

“To have a winner at the Cheltenham Festival has been my dream,” said Redknapp before being asked about his relationship with Ferguson. “Me and Alex have had some great days,” he added. “Going to Old Trafford I used to go in his office at 2.15pm when the teams had been sent out and we would then watch a bit of racing for 15 minutes. We both loved the racing and we both loved the football. It is great to see him have two winners today.”

The win of Shakem Up'Arry was a third at the meeting for Flemensfirth after those of Ballyburn (Ire) and Grey Dawning, putting him one ahead of Haras de la Tuilerie stalwart Saint Des Saints (Fr), who was responsible for both Monmiral and Protektorat. Already that pair have at least matched the feat of Shantou last year when he was the only stallion to sire more than one winner at the meeting.

Elsewhere, Kapgarde (Fr) was expected to open his account at the 2024 Festival when his impeccably-bred daughter Brighterdaysahead (Fr) lined up as the odds-on favourite for the G2 Ryanair Mares' Novices' Hurdle, trying to add another illustrious chapter to the tale of Francois-Marie Cottin's brilliant broodmare Matnie (Fr) (Laveron {GB}).

Already the dam of five Graded winners from as many foals, including the multiple Grade 1 hero Mighty Potter (Fr) (Martaline {Fr}) and the aforementioned Caldwell Potter, Matnie looked to have produced another star in the shape of Brighterdaysahead, who came into the race unbeaten in five starts under Rules having been bought by Gordon Elliott for €310,000 at the Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale as a three-year-old.

This time, however, Brighterdaysahead was forced to settle for the runner-up spot as she was unable to match the turn of foot shown by Jeremy Scott's Flat-bred winner, Golden Ace (GB). She was making it five on the day for Britain and became a first Festival winner for Golden Horn (GB), the G1 Derby and G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe hero who relocated to Overbury Stud to stand his first season as a National Hunt sire in 2023.

Golden Ace is out of the Listed-winning Dubawi (Ire) mare Deuce Again (GB) but made only 12,000gns when selling as an unraced three-year-old at the Tattersalls July Sale. Yet to taste defeat in three starts over hurdles, Golden Ace is proving quite the bargain for owner Ian Gosden, not to mention a flagbearer for Scott.

He was celebrating a first Festival success following a couple of near-misses in a training career spanning more than two decades, notably with Dashel Drasher (GB) (Passing Glance {GB}) in last year's G1 Paddy Power Stayers' Hurdle.

“It's an emotional moment,” said Scott. “I thought last year coming second with dear old Dashel Drasher was something, but this is very, very, very special. I'm so thrilled for the yard and for my family, who are all involved. It's a super moment.”

Dashel Drasher could manage only eighth in the latest edition of the Stayers' Hurdle behind old rival Teahupoo (Fr) (Masked Marvel {GB}), who finished a controversial third in 2023 having met late interference at the hands of the runner-up. The stewards on the day promoted Teahupoo to second before Dashel Drasher was reinstated on appeal.

This year it was all rather routine for Teahupoo, who gradually asserted after being produced to lead on the approach to the last, always doing enough from there to land the spoils by three and three-quarter lengths from the 2021 and 2022 winner Flooring Porter (Ire) (Yeats {Ire}).

Knocking on the door earlier in the week and again with Brighterdaysahead in the Dawn Run, Elliott cut a relieved figure afterwards, safe in the knowledge that he won't be leaving Cheltenham empty-handed.

“It's just great to get a winner–we've hit the crossbar all week,” Elliott summed up. “The horses are running well and there are no excuses and no hard-luck stories either, but to win the Stayers' Hurdle is just unbelievable. It's been a long couple of days, but no horse didn't win that should have won. We've one on the board now, so we are happy.”

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Two Queens But Only One King as Mullins Rules Cheltenham

CHELTENHAM, UK — “It's the Willie Mullins five as they come towards the last.”

Commentator Ian Bartlett issued a line to strike dread into the hearts of rival trainers. Mullins had picked up where he left off, with Ballyburn (Ire) (Flemensfirth) leading home his stable-mates Jimmy de Seuil (Fr), Ile Atlantique (Fr), Mercurey (Fr) and Predators Gold (Fr) in the G1 Gallagher Novices' Hurdle. The only other finisher, and one of two British-trained runners, was Ben Pauling's Handstands (Ire), tailed off, while Jingko Blue (Fr) continued a week of woe for Nicky Henderson by becoming his sixth horse in the last two days at Cheltenham to be pulled up mid-race.

In the parade ring ahead of the next, Queen Camilla looked unperturbed by England's apparent inferiority in the jumping ranks as she chatted with friends, very much at home in the Cotswolds. Just across the paddock was the man who trained Cheltenham's original 'Famous Five', Michael Dickinson, holding court amid a group of visiting influencers.

Things have changed since 1983 when Dickinson saddled Bregawn, Captain John, Wayward Lad, Silver Buck and Ashley House, who became an instant quiz question when securing their places in history by being the first five home in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Dickinson looked around, gesturing towards the impressive new grandstand, and said, “The Festival is so different now, none of this was here. It has changed and gone forward, it was nothing like this in the old days.”

The Yorkshireman has been based in America for many years but can't resist an annual pilgrimage to Cheltenham.

“It's four days of championship racing with over 200,000 people attending. They bet half a billion dollars and there's £7 million in prize-money,” he added. “That's it in a nutshell. There's nothing like this.”

There is also nothing, or nobody, quite like Willie Mullins. After Ballyburn came the stunning Fact To File (Fr) (Poliglote {GB}) to win the G1 Brown Advisory Novices' Chase and put Ireland's champion National Hunt trainer on the cusp of notching 100 winners at the Cheltenham Festival. He walked in to the winner's circle with an almost apologetic air. Nicky Henderson, his main British rival and the man who for a long time had been the winningmost trainer at the Festival, was barely at the races. Henderson had acknowledged the poor performances of his runners on the opening day of the meeting and announced the withdrawal of Jonbon (Fr), First Street (GB) and Kingston Pride (Ire) from Wednesday's proceedings.

As Mullins mused next year's Champion Hurdle potential of Ballyburn, his thoughts turned also to his friend and rival.

“Nicky Henderson must be devastated, having to pull out his horses,” he said. “That's what I'm always dreading, that you have an axe swung in from the side that takes you out at the knees.

“We all feel for him, because we'd rather have beaten Constitution Hill to win the Champion Hurdle. We're good pals and we like the competition, and it's just awful for people. You save it all up for the whole year, your energy, everything, put it all into this and then the horses are taken out because of some mystery, whatever's going through the yard.”

Setbacks come in different guises, however, and by the time of the day's feature race, the G1 Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase, it was Mullins who was ruing his luck when his odds-on favourite El Fabiolo (Fr) (Spanish Moon) crumpled on landing over the fifth fence and, though swiftly back to his feet with Paul Townend still aboard, was sensible pulled up, all momentum lost.

Instead, it was that immensely popular duo of Henry de Bromhead and Rachael Blackmore who prevailed with the appropriately named Captain Guinness (Ire), who had been second last year behind Energumene (Fr). This time around Mullins had to settle for second courtesy of his other runner, Gentleman De Mee (Fr) (Saint Des Saints {Fr}).

For the winning trainer it was a fourth success in this championship for the two-mile chasers in the last 13 years, but it was the first time his stable jockey Blackmore had won this particular race and it completed her triple crown to go with Honeysuckle's Champion Hurdles and A Plus Tard's Gold Cup.

“Here she is, the Queen of Cheltenham,” said the announcer as Blackmore was led back in while the actual Queen stood discreetly to one side applauding.

Blackmore has long been jump racing's greatest gift. A fierce competitor on equal terms in an unforgiving sport, she would almost certainly loathe to be thought of as anything other than just a jockey, but she is indubitably one of the best we've seen and she just happens to be female.

“You just leave it to her,” said de Bromhead as he assessed the performance of Blackmore. “I've said it all before, she's such an incredible rider, and whatever it is about here, she's amazing here, even better.”

Blackmore herself said after claiming her 16th Festival victory on Declan Landy's nine-year-old, “He's an incredible horse and just fantastic. I'm not shocked, because I thought his day would come, but at the same time I can't believe it came today.

“Although he was beaten a long way, he ran a really good race here last year behind an incredibly talented horse, and when you are riding for Henry around here this week he does just get them spot on, so I was very, very hopeful coming into the race. I'm just so delighted it's finally happened, and on the biggest stage of all. It's an incredible race to win.”

Britain did get two strikes on the board on Wednesday – both from the same stable. Dan Skelton, the trainer of repeat Coral Cup winner Langer Dan (Ire) (Ocovango {Ger}) and Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Chase winner Unexpected Party (Fr) (Martaline {Fr}), had started the week in less auspicious fashion by being fined £6,000 by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) for his part in the saga surrounding the sale of George Gently (Fr).

In a “fast-tracked” disciplinary hearing into a case which has actually been ongoing for six years, Skelton admitted to two breaches of the Rules of Racing. He was handed a financial penalty but no suspension despite having been found to have misled or attempted to mislead the BHA in regard to the ownership of George Gently prior to his sale to a syndicate. Not the greatest PR for British jump racing at a time when its fragility is becoming increasingly apparent.

Cheltenham, too, has issues that will need to be addressed in the near future in regard to the Festival. The attendance figure for Wednesday was 46,771, the lowest it has been since 2009. In 2022, the first year the crowds returned after Covid, there were 64,431 people at Cheltenham for Queen Mother Champion Chase day, but prior to the pandemic the more usual figure for the Wednesday had been just shy of 60,000.

More positively, the day ended as it had started, with victory for Willie Mullins and a significant milestone reached with his century of Cheltenham Festival winners.

“Willie's in the bumper” has been a favourite fall-back option for festival-goers for years, ever since Mullins trained – and rode – his first Champion Bumper winner Wither Or Which (Ire) in 1996. That sparked three in a row, and his tally in the Festival's sole flat contest now stands at 13 victories. On four of those occasions his son Patrick has been aboard, as he was for this significant 100th Festival win.

In fact, these days it is hard to narrow down exactly which one of Willie's it will be in the bumper. This year he trained eight of the 19 runners, and the winner, Jasmin De Vaux (Fr) (Tirwanako {Fr}), is owned, like the unfortunate El Fabiolo, by Simon Munir and Isaac Souede.

“I can't put into words what it feels like to train 100 winners here, because nobody ever thought that anybody would train 100 winners,” Mullins said. “As I've often said, when I started out and had my first win here with Tourist Attraction I thought that was a lifetime achievement, so I'm absolutely stunned that we've come this far.

“We have such a wonderful team at home, with my wife Jackie, Patrick, David Casey, Ruby [Walsh], Dick [Dowling], and all of my head people. It's such a team effort, and they had all of those horses to saddle there. I didn't go near one saddle.”

He added, “I was really pleased Patrick got the ride. I wasn't sure he was on the right one, but he picked it and he was spot on.

“Simon and Isaac had the disappointment with El Fabiolo so for them to own this horse was a little bit of justice.”

It is indeed, for while Mullins is dominating the Festival, with six of the 13 winners at the halfway stage, those horses were owned by five separate owners or partnerships. It is hard to see the influx of young equine talent to his stable ending any time soon.

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