Get ready to roar for the Cheltenham Festival: Here’s everything you need to know
Cheltenham is finally here. It’s set to be another cracking four days of horse racing action
Cheltenham is finally here. It’s set to be another cracking four days of horse racing action with plenty of talking points to whet the appetite ahead of one of the greatest horse racing spectacles in the calendar.
To celebrate the Cheltenham Festival, Sky Bet have offers on every race of every day for the ultimate away fixture.
The feature race of the 4-day meeting is the Gold Cup and the Irish will be hoping to have even more reason to celebrate with Galopin Des Champs looking to make it back-to-back successes in the race.
The Willie Mullins trained horse hasn’t put a foot wrong in the build-up, remaining undefeated all season ahead of the spectacle and will likely go off favourite for the race. The British hopes are led by the enigmatic Shishkin who undoubtedly has the quality to mix it with him. However, his unpredictability may put off backers, especially after refusing to race at Ascot in the 1965 Chase back in November.
The Festival kicks off with the Sky Bet Supreme Hurdle and Mullins could get his meeting off to the perfect start with his horse Ballyburn likely to go off favourite for the race. He hasn’t put a foot wrong in his last two races at Punchestown and looked very impressive when winning by a staggering 25 lengths back in December.
Mullins also has Tullyhill in the race and it could well be an Irish 1-2-3 with Gordon Elliott likely to run Firefox. The best British chance of success in the race lies with Nicky Henderson’s Jeriko Du Reponet.
The Champion Hurdle on Day 1 took a hammer blow with Nicky Henderson’s Constitution Hill ruled out of the meeting after a below par gallop at Kempton, with subsequent tests ultimately showing the unbeaten star with ‘significant mucus’ before blood tests also showed some inflammation.
Constitution Hill had looked like being the banker of the tournament for the British, and it now looks like going the way of the Irish with Mullins’ State Man now the favourite to win the Champion Hurdle.
The feature race on Day 2 of the Festival is the Queen Mother Champion Chase. Mullins is likely to have another short-priced favourite for the race in El Fabiolo, who has looked mightily impressive this season. The most likely to beat El Fabiolo comes in the form of Nicky Henderson’s Jonbon, while Alan King’s Edwardstone could also challenge the Irish hope.
Emma Lavelle’s Paisley Park would be a crowd pleaser if he were to win Thursday’s Stayers’ Hurdle. But the main contenders once again come from Ireland with Gordon Elliott’s duo Teahupoo and Irish Point.
Whatever happens though it’s set to be yet another cracking Festival and one that is sure to produce some incredible never-to-forget moments.
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Thomas Thorn