Good morning from Cheltenham on day three of the 2025 festival meeting – effectively the day that was added to the schedule 20 years ago to expand it from three to four. It still feels a little uncertain of itself, with two Grade Ones in the middle of the card rather than a standout feature, but one or other of the Ryanair Chase or the Stayers’ Hurdle generally throws up a decent yarn, and sometimes – as was the case on a memorable afternoon in 2019 – it is both.
This year, perhaps – it is always risky to be too dogmatic at Cheltenham – it will be the Ryanair, which is a vanishingly rare meeting of top-class chasers trained in the three major jumping nations. The Irish team is led by Fact To File, who was quoted at fairly short odds for the Gold Cup after winning the three-mile novice here last year but is leaving that to his stable companion, Galopin Des Champs. The British challenge is headed by Protektorat, last year’s winner, while France fields the hugely exciting Il Est Francais.
He is, admittedly, trained in France by an Englishman and a Swede (Noel George and Amanda Zetterholm) but having had just a single winner at this meeting since 2005, the French will celebrate long and hard all the same if the front-running Il Est Francais can stamp his authority on Cheltenham at the first attempt. He announced himself as a major talent with a devastating display in the Grade One novice at Kempton’s Boxing Day meeting in 2023, and put up a similarly spectacular display for much of the way in the King George VI Chase at Christmas. Something similar over this very different course this afternoon will be quite the sight to see.
It is a bright, clear morning in the west country, with a chill in the air but no sign of any of yesterday’s snow as the action switches to the New Course for the final two days of the meeting.
The going is good-to-soft (from good-to-soft, soft in places), while the news from the weighing room is that Jack Kennedy, Gordon Elliott’s number one, will have to pass the doctor to ride today after slightly aggravating the leg injury that ruled him out of much of the earlier part of the season. Since Sam Ewing, who had been filling very successfully for Kennedy earlier in the year, is also ruled out today, it could be a real headache for Elliott.
My picks for the afternoon – full disclosure: currently showing a slight loss of £2.18 to level stakes – are here, and you can get the latest news on Kennedy, his potential replacements and much, much more here on the blog as the day unfolds.
