The Cheltenham Festival's leading owner J. P. McManus

Champion Hurdle favourite The New Lion heads incredible Cheltenham Festival team for J. P. McManus

By John Ingles

Horse Racing

Mon March 02, 2026 · 1h ago

John Ingles looks at the leading contenders among J. P. McManus' formidable Cheltenham raiding party that also includes last year's winners Inothewayurthinkin and Fact To File.

Tuesday

J. P. McManus’s standout runner on the opening day of the Festival is The New Lion, currently favourite to bring the owner's record number of winners in the Champion Hurdle to ten. He’ll be bidding to emulate McManus’s first and greatest Champion Hurdle winner Istabraq who won the Royal & SunAlliance Novices’ Hurdle (nowadays the Turners) the year before he won the Champion Hurdle for the first time.

The New Lion returns after winning at Cheltenham in January

The New Lion has only run twice since winning at last year’s Festival. He was unable to capitalise on Constitution Hill’s fall in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle when coming down himself two out but accomplished a simple task in the International Hurdle at Cheltenham on Festival Trials Day after chief rival Sir Gino sustained an injury. Likely to be suited a stronger gallop in the Champion Hurdle, The New Lion remains unbeaten in completed starts and is open to further improvement in a renewal that will be lacking former winner State Man as well as both Sir Gino and Constitution Hill.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, McManus has leading contenders in some of the handicaps. A half-brother to McManus’s 2022 Fred Winter winner Brazil, Saratoga looks to have been laid out for the same race by Brazil’s trainer Padraig Roche. Useful on the Flat for Aidan O’Brien, Saratoga has been placed in his three starts over hurdles and looks open to further improvement after running his best race when second at Naas last time, shaping well.

Jagwar won the Plate Handicap Chase last year and has a choice of going for the same race again or stepping up in trip for the Ultima earlier on the card. Beaten a head in a premier handicap on Trials Day, a longer trip might help Jagwar as he’s not the most fluent of jumpers. However, Jagwar’s trainers Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero also have fellow Grand National entry Iroko, fourth at Aintree last year, in the Ultima for which he too is a leading contender. Irish pair McLaurey and Waterford Whispers, both seeking a first win over fences, give McManus other options in the Plate.

Wednesday

Runner-up with Gentleman de Mee and then Jonbon for the last two years, McManus will be hoping Majborough can finally provide him with a winner in the Queen Mother Champion Chase which has so far eluded him. Still only six, it’s just two years since Majborough won the Triumph Hurdle. Even then he already looked a chasing type and was odds on for last year’s Arkle in which he did well to rally for a close third having all but come down two out.

While he made amends at Punchestown, doubts about Majborough’s jumping persisted until his latest start when he produced the best performance by a chaser all season in the Dublin Chase at Leopardstown. Fitted with cheekpieces for the first time, he jumped much more soundly, going with enthusiasm in front and pulling 19 lengths clear of last year’s Champion Chase winner Marine Nationale. He’ll be hard to beat if the headgear works again and he copes better than he did last year with the Cheltenham fences.

Majborough on his way to an emphatic victory at Leopardstown last time

Mighty Park has been supported for Tuesday’s Supreme Novices’ Hurdle but is vying for favouritism in the Turners Novices’ Hurdle where the longer trip should suit him on pedigree, as he’s out of the same mare as King George winner and Gold Cup runner-up Might Bite. However, having been runner-up in his only point, Mighty Park showed no lack of speed on his hurdling debut at Fairyhouse in January, running his rivals ragged from the front to come 38 lengths clear of the runner-up. While open to lots of improvement – he has the Timeform ‘large P’ – Mighty Park will lack hurdling experience in the much more competitive environment of the Festival whichever race he ends up going for but he’s an exciting prospect.

Kaid d’Authie was an outsider when pulled up behind The New One at last year’s Festival, but he has made into one of the leading novice chasers this term. While stablemate Final Demand proved very disappointing when last of the three finishers in the Ladbrokes Novice Chase at the Dublin Racing Festival, Kaid d’Authie, with cheekpieces back on, travelled and jumped with much more fluency than the favourite and showed improved form. He’ll get the chance to confirm that improvement in another meeting with Final Demand in the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase where he should cope fine with the step up to three miles.

Thursday

Two of McManus’s best chasers could go head-to-head in the Ryanair Chase, where last year’s winner Fact To File is currently trading as the odds-on favourite. Fact To File has an excellent Festival record, finishing second in the Champion Bumper and winning the Brown Advisory prior to last year’s Ryanair victory when he put in a superb round of jumping on the way to winning by nine lengths.

Fact To File and Mark Walsh en route to landing the Ryanair Chase

Fact To File and Mark Walsh en route to landing last year's Ryanair Chase

After a rare below-par effort in the King George, Fact To File bounced back to win the Irish Gold Cup last time from stablemates Gaelic Warrior (who’d beaten him in the John Durkan at Punchestown earlier in the season) and Galopin des Champs. That win prompted speculation that Fact To File would be supplemented for the Cheltenham Gold Cup but with McManus having other contenders for that, a defence of his Ryanair title is on the cards. With wins in the Clarence House Chase and Ascot Chase, Jonbon has earned his place in the Ryanair line-up too, though as has been well publicised he remains without a Festival win, finishing runner-up when odds on for last season’s Champion Chase.

In the Stayer’s Hurdle, McManus has one of the main challengers to Teahupoo, the winner in 2024 and placed for a second time when runner-up last year. Trained, like the favourite, by Gordon Elliott, Honesty Policy is a lightly-raced six-year-old who remains very much unexposed as a stayer. He ran at Aintree rather than Cheltenham last spring, first coming to prominence when winning the Mersey Novices’ Hurdle before a good second at Punchestown. On his only run since, Honesty Policy kept on for third in the Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot, just over a length behind Impose Toi, who is himself a possible for McManus off top weight in the same day’s Pertemps Final.

As well as the aforementioned McLaurey, who could go for the Jack Richards Novices’ Handicap Chase as an alternative to Tuesday’s Plate, McManus has other leading contenders on Thursday in the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle, with Oldschool Outlaw, acquired prior to her latest start and with a win over likely favourite Bambino Fever already this season, and in the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir where novice Jeriko du Reponet, ridden with an eye to the future at Windsor last time, has dropped just enough in the weights to get in off the maximum permitted BHA rating.

Friday

Twelve months ago, Inothewayurthinkin provided McManus with his third win in the Gold Cup, the seven-year-old running a career best to deny Galopin des Champs his third successive win in the race. But far from confirming himself the new top staying chaser, Inothewayurthinkin’s hopes of retaining his title seem to have receded with each run this season; he was set to finish well beaten again, as on his two previous starts this season, when taking a tired fall at the last in the Irish Gold Cup last time. However, trainer Gavin Cromwell has issued a more upbeat report on him recently which has resulted in his Gold Cup odds shortening, while his supporters can also point to Inothewayurthinkin’s tendency to hit peak form in the spring, something he also did when successful at the Festival in 2024 in the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir.

Inothewayurthinkin takes the last fence in style at Cheltenham

Inothewayurthinkin needs to rediscover last year's Gold Cup form

He’s not McManus’s only Gold Cup contender, though, and Spillane’s Tower goes into the race more obviously in form, having made his first start at Cheltenham a winning one when successful in the Cotswold Chase on Trials Day in January. That was a small field, however, and he’d have more on his plate in a well-run Gold Cup, while the other McManus Gold Cup entry, 2024 Grand National winner I Am Maximus, is probably more focussed on Aintree again, though his staying-on second in the Savills Chase at Christmas was a good effort.

Perhaps the best chance of a McManus winner on the final day of the Festival is Dinoblue who looks the one to beat in the Mares’ Chase again, her only defeat in her last six starts coming outside mares’ company and successful in the same race at Naas last time which she won en route to the Festival last year. McManus suffered a blow when his Triumph Hurdle ante-post favourite Narciso Has had to be ruled out of the race, but he’s been replaced at the head of the betting by another of his owner’s French imports Proactif who made it two out of two over hurdles when successful on his debut for Willie Mullins at Fairyhouse in January.

Its On The Line will be back for another crack at the Hunters’ Chase, having won the similar contests at Aintree and Punchestown, but finding one to good in three attempts at Cheltenham so far and beaten just a neck last year. In Friday’s handicap hurdles, McManus will be relying principally on the progressive mare Khrisma, who looks the sort to be suited by the big field of the County Hurdle, and Kel Histoire, another who’s had the minimum five qualifying runs, and will appreciate stepping back up in trip in the Martin Pipe.