Cheltenham is back.

The hole is filled in, a kilometre of drainage has been replaced, the bars have been refurbished (and not just with a ‘lick of paint’), significant enough rain seems to be sweeping through the Cotswolds and we’ve the two-day Showcase Meeting on ITV Racing on Friday and Saturday.

There’s enough to like right there for a jumps racing fan thirsty for some decent action but, if big names are your thing, the wait will have to go on a little while yet.

In this period of transition, though, there is a plethora of content on the internet to get you into the right frame of mind for the season ahead.

On these pages we have Stable Tours from Dan Skelton, Ben Pauling, Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson, with plenty more to come, while there’s Timeform’s 50 ‘Horses To Follow’ to peruse, online-only now, but with a whole host of additional interactive features to bring the collection to life.

The Racing Post’s Big Jump Off was an extensive package and I enjoyed the ‘Jump Season Preview’ on Racing TV’s YouTube channel, where Lydia Hislop brings up the potential need for racing’s equivalent of football’s Financial Fair Play rules as early as the third minute.

She didn’t, and we won’t, go into who could be racing’s equivalent of Manchester City, not when we’re barely into the depths of October and all hope springs eternal, but, focusing on the equine stars, there was plenty of chat about jump racing’s new poster boy, Gaelic Warrior, and he will be a hot topic of conversation amongst the National Hunt fraternity throughout the campaign.

It’s not unusual to see the reigning Cheltenham Gold Cup champ chalked up as the 2/1 favourite five months in advance, and there was no doubting his brilliance last March, but I have been a little surprised at the almost universal feeling that the 2027 renewal is his to lose already.

Perhaps importantly, we have already seen evidence that his Gold Cup triumph has not taken the edge off him, given he came out six weeks later and put in an imperious effort when winning by 26 lengths at Punchestown, and that is an indicator that he can go on and produce more 180+ performances in textbook fashion this season.

If he does he’s going to be tough to beat, but it is not a division where the combination of class and longevity is commonplace, for all that Kauto Star and more recently Galopin Des Champs are fresh enough in the memory banks.

Gaelic Warrior’s great strength is that he’s a pacey horse who stays, much like Kauto Star. It’s a freakish combination at a high level and horses with that profile rarely come along - certainly not with the frequency with which Paul Nicholls’ great champion lit up the winter game.

Willie Mullins’ horse could be another one, I suppose, but there is just a nagging feeling that one or two mid-winter brawls at Kempton and Leopardstown might see his Cheltenham Gold Cup odds lengthen, and while he’s arguably in his prime eight turning nine, we have now had a decade of the Festival feature going to seven and eight-year-olds.

Ben Linfoot

Journalist

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Our form expert has three selections for Friday's ITV racing action from Newmarket and York.

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Our form expert has three selections for Saturday's ITV action at Ascot while he has a tip for ParisLongchamp as well.

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