Greg Wood

3.20 CLOSE BROTHERS MARES’ HURDLE, Grade One 2m 3f 200yds

Back to the short-priced favourites after the brief interregnum of the Ultima, and the key piece of form here is Lossiemouth’s comfortable success in the same race 12 months ago. Hopes were fairly high a couple of weeks ago that she would drop back in trip for the Champion Hurdle itself but the decision to go for what is, on paper at least, a much easier assignment in this race is probably a sensible one given that she was no match for Constitution Hill in the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton earlier in the season. She suffered a spectacular fall on her latest start in the Irish Champion Hurdle but did not have a bother on her, as they say, at a media morning at Mullins’s yard a couple of days later and will presumably be at peak form for today’s return to festival action.

The betting suggests that Jade De Grugy, an impressive Grade one winner at Fairyhouse last season who has made just one start since, in a Grade Three at Punchestown last month, is the main danger to her stable companion, although Henry de Bromhead’s July Flower and Nicky Henderson’s Joyeuse – the easy winner of the highly competitive William Hill Handicap Hurdle at Newbury last month – will also have supporters. Lossiemouth, though, is a clear pick on both her career and festival form and a repeat of last year’s performance in this race would probably be enough.

SELECTION: LOSSIEMOUTH

Greg Wood

Preview: 2.40 ULTIMA HANDICAP CHASE, 3M 1F

After two Grade Ones with a short-priced market leader, the first festival handicap could hardly offer more of a contrast with 24 runners and several jostling for favouritism at around 8-1. The Ultima is almost unique at the festival in that it has remained impervious to the otherwise all-conquering Irish in recent years – there have, bizarrely, been more French-trained winners (three) since the turn of the century than the two from Ireland, way back in 2003 and 2006. British stables dominate the top of the betting, with Katate Dori, The Changing Man, Broadway Boy and Crebilly all priced up at between 8-1 and 10-1, while Lucinda Russell’s Myretown has been the one for money over the last couple of days to give the trainer a third win in four seasons. For all the British dominance in recent years, though, it is also the case that Irish representation in this race has been much lower than elsewhere at the meeting, and fancied runners from across the water have made the frame in each of the last two years. The Short Go, representing the ever-popular Henry de Bromhead/Rachael Blackmore combo, and Sequestered, from the Paul Gilligan stable, both have decent claims on their form this year and the latter in particular ticks plenty of boxes for this race as a fast-improving novice with big-field experience. On the basis that horses do not know which country they are stabled in, he’s my pick to give Ireland a long overdue Ultima success.

SELECTION: SEQUESTERED.

Greg Wood

Preview: Arkle Challenge Trophy Novice Chase, Grade One (2m), 2.00

Race two at the meeting and, in all likelihood, the second odds-on favourite as well. Majborough, last year’s Triumph Hurdle winner, has been all the rage for this since his fellow four-year-old, Sir Gino, was scratched in mid-February. Sir Gino’s absence robs the festival of what had promised to be one of the great head-to-heads, as he was ruled out shortly after Majborough’s nine-length defeat of the re-opposing Touch Me Not in the Irish Arkle at Leopardstown in February. That win was not entirely blemish-free, but Majborough looked more confident at his fences as the race went on, he still had plenty left in the tank at the line and it was, after all, just his second start over the bigger obstacles.

He is far from a stone-cold cert, however, and Dan Skelton, the current clear leader in the race for the National Hunt trainers’ title, will have high hopes of staging a minor upset with L’Eau Du Sud, a classy handicap hurdler last year who has taken his form to fresh heights over fences. He showed a classy turn of foot between three and two out to put the Kingmaker Novice Chase to bed at Warwick last month, and also has a course-and-distance chase win in November to prove he can handle Cheltenham.

Jango Baie is also a course winner, although his success at the December meeting came over two-and-a-half miles, and he was touched off in the Scilly Isles Novice Chase over the same trip at Sandown last month. An interesting runner at a double-figure price, meanwhile, is Gavin Cromwell’s Only By Night, who – like Majborough and L’Eeu Du Sud – remains unbeaten over fences. All three of his wins have come in small-field affairs, the most recent being a five-runner Listed event at Exeter, and his trainer has an exceptional record with his runners at Cheltenham in general and the festival in particular.

SELECTION: L’EAU DU SUD.

KEY FORM:

Irish Arkle Novice Chase, Leopardstown, 1 Feb 25 (Majborough, Touch Me Not).

Kingmaker Novice Chase, Warwick, 8 Feb 25 (L’Eau Du Sud).

Henry VIII Novice Chase, Sandown, 7 Dec 24 (L’Eau Du Sud, Touch Me Not).

Agatha Christie Mares’ Novice Chase, Exeter, 9 Feb 25 (Only By Night).

Greg Wood

Preview: Michael O’Sullivan Supreme Novices’ Chase (1.20)

The Festival gets up and running with what has become something of a traditional entrée: a Willie Mullins-trained “hotpot” in Kopek Des Bordes, whose success or otherwise will set the mood from a betting perspective for the remainder of the day. Much has been said already about the bookies “fearing” a short-priced four-timer – Kopek Des Bordes (Champion Hurdle) on the opening afternoon, but it is worth remembering that the betting industry loves nothing more than a multitude of punters with big balances in their account when there are still two dozen races left at the meeting.

There is also nothing quite like the blood-curdling wall of noise that greets a winning favourite in the opener – it is one of the definitive festival experiences – and Kopek Des Bordes is a worthy contender to follow the likes of Vautour, Douvan and Appreciate It, the most recent of Mullins’ six winners of this race. He replaced his stable companion, Salvator Mundi, at the top of the betting when he sauntered home in the equivalent race at the Dublin Racing Festival in February, and his time figure there fully backs up the visual impression of his 13-length success.

Salvator Mundi is also in the field today, and has not been seen on course since winning a Grade Two at Punchestown in January, but the biggest danger to the market leader could well be Gordon Elliott’s Romeo Coolio, the nine-length winner of the Grade One Future Champions Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting.

Two more contenders worthy of a mention are Workahead and William Munny, who finished first and second in a maiden hurdle at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting. William Munny showed improved form to win next time up and would be a hugely emotional winner as he runs for the same connections as Marine Nationale, the winner of this race two years ago with the late Michael O’Sullivan in the saddle.

The Irish jockey died in February from injuries sustained in a fall, and today’s race will be run this year as the Michael O’Sullivan Supreme Novice Hurdle in his memory.

Selection: Kopek Des Bordes.

Key form (video in links):

Brave Inca Novice Hurdle, Leopardstown, 2 Feb 25 (Kopek Des Bordes)

Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle, Punchestown, 12 Jan 25 (Salvator Mundi)

Future Champions Novice Hurdle, Leopardstown, 27 Dec 24 (Romeo Coolio).

Thorntons Recycling Maiden Hurdle, Leopardstown 29 Dec 24 (Workahead, William Munny).

1.20 Michael O’Sullivan Supreme Novices’ Hurdle
2.00 Arkle Chase
2.40 Ultima Handicap Chase
3.20 Mares Hurdle
4.00 Champion Hurdle
4.40 Fred Winter Juvenile Hurdle
5.20 National Hunt Chase

Grade one races in bold

Preamble

Greg Wood

Good morning from Cheltenham racecourse, where all feels as it should do on the first day of the festival meeting despite the track’s admission over the weekend that the crowds are not (yet) flooding back to the meeting as many would have hoped. This is the first year of a new-look festival, with more handicaps to boost competitiveness and field sizes, and also several new measures to improve the “customer experience”, and it will presumably not be until this time next year that we get much of an idea of how it all worked out.

One of the key indicators of customer experience, of course, is whether they emerge from the most concentrated four days of betting all year with their noses in front, and Tuesday’s opening card will be a potentially crucial first engagement between punters and bookies as all four of the Grade One events have a short-priced favourite.

Bookies’ PRs have been falling over themselves for the last few days, trying to come up with increasingly eye-catching estimates of how much the industry will lose if all four favourites oblige. As ever, their numbers should not be taken at face value as a. no-one will be checking the books and b. they get paid for mentions, not historical accuracy, but it would certainly put the punting fraternity on good terms with themselves if the four-timer– which currently pays around 7-1 – were to come up on day one.

That, of course, also suggests that it is around 1-7 that at least one of the supposed good things will be beaten, but if Constitution Hill can justify his odds-on price in the Champion Hurdle at 4.00, then any pain felt as the result of a defeat of a favourite or two earlier in the day will be largely erased. He is already rightly hailed as one of the greatest hurdlers of all time, but a second Champion Hurdle, after he was forced to surrender his crown without a battle 12 months ago, would be one of those festival moments that no-one who is there to see it will ever forget.

It’s possible to think that Constitution Hill is the likeliest winner this afternoon while also believing that Brighterdaysahead, his main market rival, should be a fair bit closer to Nicky Henderson’s gelding in the betting. A magnificent race is in prospect, in the midst of a card that has something for everyone with three ultra-competitive handicaps also in the mix.

There was, a little surprisingly, around 3.5mm of rain at the track overnight but Jon Pullin, the clerk of the course, reports that the turf has “taken it really well”. As a result, the meeting will open – as it generally does – on good-to-soft, and while daytime temperatures are unlikely to get back to the double-figures we all enjoyed last week, there is little or no rain in the forecast.

Some thoughts and picks for the first day card are here, the wonderful Don McRae’s recent interview with Harry Skelton, the clear leader in the race for the new £500,000 David Power Jockeys’ Cup is here, and we’re set fair for another thrilling week of action in the Cotswolds. As always, you can follow all the action and reaction as it happens here on the blog, with race previews, links to video form, news, live commentary and more. The famous Cheltenham roar is now just a few hours away!