CHELTENHAM FESTIVAL WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE

Graeme Rodway on the greatest four days of racing the sport has to offer – the Olympics of jump racing

THIS is what it’s all about. The Cheltenham Festival has become the be-all and end-all of the jumping season for the majority in the sport and rightly so. It is the Olympics of racing and luckily we don’t have to wait four years for each one, it’s an annual jamboree to be savoured.

Most trainers will aim to have their horses at their peak for just one big day in March and that’s particularly true of the Irish, who have dominated at Cheltenham in recent years.

Get ready for weeks of endless debate, twitter blowups and fighting talk from all corners before a round of Cheltenham preview nights kick the festival preparations into another gear.

As they go to the start for the traditional opener, the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, the crowd are whipped up and ready to roar. By the time we reached the last race of last season’s festival, a chorus of the football chant “don’t take me home” rang around the grandstands.

The atmosphere is unique for a racing event and it was a one-off expression of pure joy that came during a week when horses are all that matter. The traditionalists found their skin crawling, but this outpouring of love for the festival marked the day that racing came of age with a new generation of fans who have fallen for this event, even if not the sport as a whole.

The festival therefore has that unique ability to appeal to a crowd outside of the racing bubble and with that comes the opportunity to draw much-needed new fans to the sport.

So sit back and enjoy the best four days of racing in the jumping calendar.

KEY RACES Champion Hurdle Tuesday

This race is usually run at a frenetic pace and jumping is at a premium, but last season’s race wasn’t a typical running. Honeysuckle won in a time 5.78 seconds slower than the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and it was slowly run early, fast in the middle, with a slow finishing split.

Honeysuckle was still able to become the first back-to-back Champion Hurdle winner since Buveur D’Air in 2017-18 and her ability to adapt to however a race is run is a great strength.

She was also able to defy a significant age statistic. She became only the third winner in the last 12 to score aged eight or older, with the other two Hurricane Fly and Annie Power.

Honeysuckle is rightly among those greats after going 16 wins from 16 runs, but she will be nine next year and only Rooster Booster and Hurricane Fly won at that age this century.

The Supreme Novices’ Hurdle was clearly run more like a Champion Hurdle, given the quick time, and Constitution Hill looks the heir apparent. However, Supreme winners have an awful record in the following year’s Champion Hurdle, with Bula the last to do the double in 1971.

The last 12 Supreme winners to come back the next year and contest the Champion Hurdle were beaten in the big one, although Jezki (2014) and Buveur D’Air (2017) were beaten in the festival curtainraiser before coming back to become champion a year later.

Cheltenham Gold Cup Friday

The best race of the jumping year bar none and last season it produced the performance of the week when A Plus Tard stormed up the hill to avenge his previous year’s defeat at the hands of Minella Indo. The returning champion had no answer to the younger horse up the hill.

Victory in this race means taking your place in history and class is a huge factor. Only one winner since the start of 2010 had failed tolandaGrade1

chase prior and A Plus Tard had won four of them before last season’s success, including the Betfair Chase at Haydock.

Like so many top-class chases, the Gold Cup has been dominated by younger horses in recent years. No fewer than 11 of the last 12 Gold Cup winners were between seven and nine years old and seven were eight. Next year, the current favourite Galopin Des Champs will be seven.

Only one horse since Imperial Call in 1996 has won this race after failing to have run at a previous Cheltenham Festival and that was Coneygree in 2015. Festival form looks crucial.

A young, up-and-coming Grade 1-winning chaser with festival form is the ideal candidate.

Champion Chase Wednesday

This is one of the most thrilling races of the season, posing a unique test of speed and jumping as the best two-mile chasers tackle 13 fences around the toughest track in Britain.

The different nature of this test is probably best illustrated by the recent upsets. Six oddson favourites have been beaten in the last ten years, including outstanding two-milers like Sizing Europe, Un De Sceaux, Douvan, Defi Du Seuil,

Chacun Pour Soi and Shishkin last season.

Last year’s race was all set up as one for the ages, with a rematch between the exceptional pair Shishkin and Energumene, who had fought out the finish to the Clarence House at Ascot.

Shishkin might have won the battle, but he was pulled up early at Cheltenham and that allowed Energumene to win the war. The decider in next year’s race is eagerly awaited.

Both will be nine-year-olds, but age hasn’t been a barrier to recent success. In fact, six of the last 12 winners were aged either nine or ten and that includes four of the last seven scorers.

Stayers’ Hurdle Thursday

A recurring theme among staying races is that they are increasingly a young horse’s game and that is just as true when it comes to the feature hurdles as it is in big events over fences.

The last nine winners of this race have been aged six to eight and last season Flooring

Porter became the first horse since Big Buck’s ten years earlier to win multiple titles. Big Buck’s and Solwhit were nine when winning in 2012 and 2013, but Flooring Porter is still just seven.

Four of the nine Irish winners since the mid-1980s prepped in the Boyne Hurdle at Navan, while the best British trial is the Cleeve Hurdle at Cheltenham’s Trials meeting in January. Paisley Park (2019) and Lisnagar Oscar (2020) were the last two to come from there and win.

A young hurdler who stays well is the key and Flooring Porter is still in the right age bracket. Let’s hope he’s there in March bidding to join the greats as a three-time Stayers’ Hurdle hero.

Ryanair Chase Thursday

The supreme test of a twoand-a-half-mile chaser was only inaugurated in 2005 and the race has steadily attracted a better class of horse as it has gained recognised championship status.

A good illustration of that uplift in quality can be seen by the preparation of recent winners.

The first five winners (20052009) had either won or been placed in the Paddy Power Gold Cup or December Gold Cup. However, 2019 winner Frodon is the only one in the last ten years to have run in those races. It’s no longer won by horses stepping up from top handicaps.

Now it tends to suit those who stay further than the trip and often turns into a test of stamina, rather than speed. Seven recent winners had finished in the top four of a Grade 1 or 2 chase over 3m-plus and last season Allaho went on to land the Punchestown Gold Cup over 3m.

He will be nine next season and eight of the last ten winners were aged six to eight. However, the two nine-yearolds to win, Un De Sceaux (2017) and Min (2020), came in recent seasons.