Whether you like it or not, the Cheltenham Festival build-up starts now and that’s because there’s not a lot else to keep us going when the A-listers are lesser spotted in the build up to the big one.
The Dublin Racing Festival and Festival Trials Day apart, racing fans will be left feeding off scraps over the next few months and in a week where most of the jumps racing looks like being frozen off thoughts naturally turn to The Festival in March.
Tuesday’s initial entries for the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup, Ryanair Chase and BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase made for interesting reading and the openness of the Gold Cup sees 33 horses with their hat in the ring, up 14 from the same stage last year.
I think that’s a product of the two standard bearers in the race, Inothewayurthinkin and Galopin Des Champs, looking vulnerable for different reasons and that has minded plenty of connections to have a go in a renewal that could be there for the taking.
Galopin Des Champs is bidding to do a Kauto Star and regain his title having been dethroned last year, but he is 10 now and his reappearance third in the Savills needs to be improved upon quite significantly if he is to win the Gold Cup for a third time.
Meanwhile, the bright new thing who beat him in last year’s Gold Cup, Inothewayurthinkin, was 38 lengths behind him in the Savills having fared only marginally better than when he was beaten 53 lengths in the John Durkan on his return.
And for all the Festival could be lit up by Sir Gino, The New Lion, Lossiemouth, No Drama This End, Final Demand, Il Etait Temps, Teahupoo, Fact To File, Jango Baie, Gaelic Warrior or The Jukebox Man, or multiples of the above, there’s no horse that fascinates me more going into the spring than Inothewayurthinkin.
It seems beyond comprehension that last year’s Gold Cup winner, a horse who scaled the biggest of heights in the sport at the golden young age of seven, could be beaten a combined 94 lengths on his first two starts of the season – and retain his position at the top of the betting – but here we are.
The context is his trainer Gavin Cromwell slowly built him to a peak last season and there’s still the Irish Gold Cup at the DRF, in which he prepped so nicely last year in fourth, to come, so the opportunity will be there for him to take a major step forward before he bids to retain his Gold Cup title.
In the background of Inothewayurthinkin’s campaign is also the below-par form of his yard, who went one from 110 in a miserable November, and though the corner was turned a little in December, Cromwell still had just the two winners from 41 runners at Leopardstown, Limerick and Down Royal over the busy Christmas period.
It is of no real surprise that Inothewayurthinkin was beaten on his first two assignments of the campaign, but the manner of his latest defeat is more concerning. He didn’t jump or travel and was on the backfoot early, whereas 12 months previously he had shown plenty more in the 2024 Savills with the way he shaped in a much-closer fifth.
Cromwell has some work to do, then, but it seems owner JP McManus and team have full faith in the horse. He’s not the only McManus runner in the Gold Cup, with I Am Maximus and Spillane’s Tower in there, too, but there were no wildcard entries for any of Fact To File, Iroko or Jagwar, meaning the green and gold CGC eggs are very much in the INTWUT basket.
He's the reigning champion and at eight-years-old meant to be in the prime of his life, as well, but I find it hard to believe many punters will be rushing to support him at 6/1 on the back of his two lacklustre performances so far this campaign.
But, after last year, he will have his supporters, and they’ll be clinging onto one thing: Festival Form.
The Cheltenham Festival is unique and some horses thrive on it. They improve for the greater tempo and (sometimes) the bigger field sizes, the greater emphasis on stamina and the undulations. Horses who look ordinary on flat tracks in the winter come alive on the twists and turns in the spring and plenty are trained with March solely in mind. Some are mentally switched on by the Festival atmosphere.
Inothewayurthinkin could be another of those horses.
Since he went chasing, he’s won three races over fences from 12 goes. Two of those have been at the Cheltenham Festival, firstly in a barely believable Kim Muir (13/8 favourite, mistakes in rear early, well back, smooth headway, gagged up) and then in the Gold Cup itself. Both of those coming over 3m2f, stamina, clearly, is a strong suit.
And another Gold Cup win for Inothewayurthinkin would see him sail into the top 5 Festival specialists from this century, the parameter being ‘you’re miles better at the Fez than anywhere else’ with my current quintet looking like this…
- Langer Dan
- Buena Vista
- Delta Work
- Presenting Percy
- Arctic Fire
Langer Dan and Buena Vista were a bit different, obviously, being handicappers who basically existed for one week in March. Their trainers had them peak for the big day off a rating they could win off and after near-misses earlier in their careers they won two Coral Cups and two Pertemps Finals between them.
But to be bang average in Grade 1s around a flatter track like Leopardstown in the winter before blooming in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in the spring is a different story entirely.
I don’t think I could back him, certainly not at this stage, but I am here for this developing story. Will he bounce back? Has he regressed already despite his young age? Is he a victim of his yard's poor form? Is he a spring horse? Or is he simply a Festival specialist? Just what should we make of the reigning Gold Cup hero? I honestly don’t know, but I can’t stop thinking about Inothewayurthinkin.
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