Envoi Allen lands the Ryanair

Cheltenham Gold Cup aim for Festival regular Envoi Allen

By John Ingles

Horse Racing

Sun March 08, 2026 · 17h ago

John Ingles looks at the Festival record of Cheveley Park Stud's Envoi Allen, winner of three different races at the meeting.

The 1992 Grand National winner Party Politics lived out a lengthy retirement at the Thompson family’s Cheveley Park Stud in Newmarket, better known for its success on the Flat. Party Politics won at Aintree in the colours of Patricia Thompson but, in a more focussed attempt to win some of jumping biggest prizes, Mrs Thompson and her late husband David, in the years before his death at the beginning of 2021, put together a small but highly successful string of Cheveley Park jumpers, all of them trained in Ireland.

The three most successful Cheveley Park jumpers all made their Cheltenham Festival debuts as five-year-olds in 2019. A Plus Tard, trained by Henry de Bromhead, stormed away with the Close Brothers Novices’ Handicap Chase, giving an early indication of the talent that would see him win the Cheltenham Gold Cup three years later. Allaho, trained by Willie Mullins, finished third in the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle behind another future Gold Cup winner, A Plus Tard’s stablemate Minella Indo. While the bold-jumping Allaho won a Punchestown Gold Cup later in his career, he was at his very best over shorter trips and was a brilliant winner from the front of two editions of the Ryanair Chase.

A Plus Tard, who ran at five consecutive Festivals – he was also third in the Ryanair and runner-up to Minella Indo in the Gold Cup the year before he won it – was officially retired in January 2024, having run his final race in the previous month’s Savills Chase won by Galopin des Champs. January 2024 also turned out to be the month of Allaho’s final race – he strained a hock winning the Kinloch Brae Chase at Thurles for a third time and his retirement was announced later that year.

But the third member of that trio who first ran at Cheltenham in 2019 is still going strong. Envoi Allen, now twelve, is on course to run in the Gold Cup for the first time on Friday, which will be his eighth consecutive Festival appearance.

Whilst a French-bred like A Plus Tard and Allaho, unlike that pair Envoi Allen was bought after winning an Irish point, fetching £400,000 at the Tattersalls Ireland Cheltenham February Sale in 2018. Put into training with Gordon Elliott, Envoi Allen landed the odds in his three bumpers in Ireland before justifying favouritism to make it four out of four under Jamie Codd in the 2019 Champion Bumper.

Described by Codd as ‘a big baby’ – Envoi Allen stood 17 hands – he was still unbeaten when returning to Cheltenham a year later to win the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle (Baring Bingham). Now in the hands of Davy Russell, Envoi Allen had again won his three races in Ireland, including the Royal Bond at Fairyhouse and the Lawlor’s of Naas, while his second Festival win strengthened his claims to being the most exciting young jumper in training. ‘We haven’t been hyping him, he’s been hyping himself’ said Elliott before Cheltenham. ‘If you win seven out of seven people tend to talk about you.’

Envoi Allen’s seven out of seven had become eleven out of eleven going into the 2021 Festival. He fulfilled long-term expectations when making a seamless transition to fences, again winning all three of his races in Ireland, notably the Drinmore at Fairyhouse, before starting at 4/9 for the Marsh Novices’ Chase (Golden Miller). He had another different jockey, Jack Kennedy partnering him in all his novice chases, but also a new trainer at Cheltenham, with Envoi Allen joining de Bromhead after Elliott’s infamous photo and a resulting six-month suspension. But Envoi Allen’s jumping, which had been so assured over fences up until now, let him down and he paid the penalty when coming up too long at the fourth fence.

Thereafter, Envoi Allen’s air of invincibility had gone but there was still further Cheltenham Festival success to come. Not the next year, though, as with Allaho doing duty for Cheveley Park in the Ryanair again, Envoi Allen took his chance in the Queen Mother Champion Chase, finishing third at 10/1 behind Energumene. But with Allaho on the side-lines in 2023, Envoi Allen succeeded him on the Ryanair Chase roll of honour with another top-class performance, jumping much better than the even-money favourite Shishkin and pulling away to beat him by nearly three lengths.

Envoi Allen wins the Ryanair Chase

In winning a third different race at the Festival, Envoi Allen joined Bobs Worth and Tiger Roll who achieved the same feat. The 2013 Gold Cup winner Bobs Worth had won the Albert Bartlett and the RSA at the two previous Festivals while Tiger Roll, who made eight Festival appearances in all (though not consecutively), had already won the Triumph Hurdle and the National Hunt Chase before winning three editions of the Cross Country. Envoi Allen’s stablemate Bob Olinger won his third Festival race when successful in last year’s Stayers’ Hurdle; he’d previously won the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle and had been gifted the Turners Novices Chase by Galopin des Champs’ last-fence fall.

Envoi Allen has added to his admirable Festival record by finishing in the money again in the last two Ryanairs, coming second to Protektorat when favourite to win it again in 2024 and then third behind Fact To File and Heart Wood last year.

But if Cheltenham is Envoi Allen’s unmissable date in the spring, then Down Royal is his autumn equivalent. He made his successful debuts over both hurdles and fences at the track when Elliott trained him and has since won three of the last four Champion Chases at the same fixture – Gerri Colombe beat him by just a neck in 2023. His last two wins in that race have come in the hands of Daragh O’Keeffe who will partner him in the Gold Cup.

Playing on Envoi Allen’s good record fresh, de Bromhead is adopting the same approach as he took two seasons ago and hasn’t run him between Down Royal and Cheltenham. Realistically, his Gold Cup assignment looks much the stiffest of his Festival tasks to date, though his trainer sees things differently.

‘I think he has a chance, I really do’ de Bromhead said when talking to the Sporting Life about his Festival team recently. ‘It’s sort of like Bob Olinger last year – you look at all the horses he has beaten, and they are single figures and then you look at him and he’s some crazy price! I am kind of wondering why I haven’t run him in the Gold Cup for the past couple of years.’

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