Irish handicappers to follow at the 2025 Cheltenham Festival

Most of the talk in the lead up to the announcement of this year’s Festival weights was centred around Kopeck de Mee – a horse most outside of the Closutton circle hadn’t even heard of until the entries came out. As it turns out we could have saved ourselves the bother by justing looking up his French mark (68.0) and doubling it. Thanks to Dave Ord for picking up this snippet from the BHA’s Michael Harris at the launch: “So, we use the times two conversion and rated 68 in France, the 136 is just a mathematical conversion of the French mark.” This, of course, begs the question, why don’t they just do the same with the Irish horses and let them run from their Irish marks?

I suppose if they did that there would be no need for a weights lunch, so - as I don’t want to be the person responsible for depriving anyone of a venison pie – let’s park that question for a different day.

Kopeck de Mee

We still don’t know what race Kopeck de Mee will run in but there is evidence to suggest that he may have been left off lightly. The horse that finished third to him on his most recent start at Auteuil in May, Zephyr de Beaumont, finished second in a handicap off a mark of 67.5 (135 according to the BHA conversion) on his next start. He currently has a French mark of 72.5 having finished runner-up in a Group 1 contest on his most recent start. Whichever race Kopeck de Mee turns up in he is likely to be sent off favourite (as low as 3/1 in a place for the Martin Pipe) so I’ve picked out a few others at bigger prices that caught my eye.

Nurburgring

Joseph O’Brien is no stranger to saddling a Cheltenham handicap winner having twice landed both the Fred Winter and Martin Pipe in the last six years. But for a jolting error two from home, Entoucas – beaten a rapidly diminishing short head - would have added to that tally in the Grand Annual during the same period. His Nurburgring looks a fascinating contender in the Jack Richards on Thursday. Considered good enough to contest the Queens Vase as a three-year-old, Nurburgring quickly developed into a useful juvenile hurdler, finishing fourth to Majborough in last year’s Triumph, before going one place better behind Kargese in the equivalent race at Punchestown. He took a big step forward next time, winning the Galway Hurdle on his handicap debut in August and has since gone on to finish a close fourth in the Irish Cesarewitch. His chasing career started off quite well, too, third to Down Memory Lane in a maiden and Touch Me Not in a Grade 3 in the space of twelve days in November. He failed to get competitive at Leopardstown last time, but he had been on the go for a while and that run was needed to qualify for this contest. Based on those efforts an opening chase mark off 142 looks a shade high but when you consider he was put up to 150 by the Irish handicapper after winning the Galway Hurdle and is currently rated 94 on the Flat, it suddenly doesn’t look too bad. Still only a five-year-old, he is crying out for a step up to this sort of trip and is open to more improvement than plenty of those he will come up against here. I’m expecting a big run.

Lark In The Mornin

Another O’Brien horse that has been on my radar for a Festival handicap for a while now is Lark In The Mornin, who, somewhat surprisingly, is entered only in the County Hurdle. I say surprisingly as I expected he would at least get an entry in the Martin Pipe as a fall-back option given his current mark of 132 would have seen him miss the cut for the County in seven of the last ten years. However, five horses with a rating of 130 ran in the race last year so connections must be confident of getting a run. Here’s hoping he does as he is very easy to make a case for. He won the Fred Winter with a good deal more in hand than the winning margin of two lengths would suggest last year and had excuses on both starts since. He found things happening a bit too quickly on good to firm ground in the Swinton in May before getting caught further back than ideal when a never-nearer seventh in the race won by Enniskerry at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting. That first run for eight months should leave him spot on for this and an extended two miles on the new course should be right up his street.

Raglan Road

Henry de Bromhead tends to save his Cheltenham winners for the bigger races (just two of his 23 successes have come in handicaps) but he nearly won the Martin Pipe with Waterford Whispers last year and has a couple of interesting types entered in the race again this year. Taponthego, a novice, is unexposed at this trip but I have a suspicion that there is still more to come from Raglan Road. A big eye-catcher on debut, Raglan Road belatedly opened his account on handicap debut at Naas from a mark of 119 around this time last year and there was plenty to like about his comeback effort at Navan in January. Set plenty to do, he couldn’t sustain a big move into contention in what was a very competitive heat, but it was his first start for ten months. Interestingly, he wore a tongue tie for the first time there and it is entirely possible that a sounder surface (has raced only on soft/heavy ground) will eke out some further improvement. A mark of 129 isn’t excessive and he is one I could see outrunning his odds (as big as 40/1 in a place at the time of writing) if he does turn up.

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