Cassie Tully with her pedigree pointers ahead of the 2020 Magners Cheltenham Gold Cup

Cheltenham is basically minutes away and with it, jump racing’s most prestigious race.

The Magners Cheltenham Gold Cup needs no introduction and while there are still 19 entered in the race, nine of these priced over 33/1 are either being aimed at other races or are not going to run at Cheltenham. This leaves us with 10 realistic players for the 3mf2½f contest.

A first note from previous runnings of the £625,000 prize is that in the past 20 years no horse has won the race without winning a Grade 1 over fences first.

Chris’s Dream is the only one of the 10 that has not yet managed to win at the highest level in any discipline. The interesting one, though, is Santini.

A Grade 1 winner over hurdles in 2018, the current market favourite has had five starts over fences, winning two Grade 2s and a Listed race, but he was beaten in both of his Grade 1 starts. Without suggesting that Santini is not the horse to break this pattern, his price does seem questionably short.

Unsurprisingly, nearly all of the runners are by top sires, most of whom are multiple Grade 1 producers over fences.

There are two runners with sires that don't have multiple top chasing ammunition, however, and they are Presenting Percy who is the sole Grade 1 winner in the National Hunt sphere for Sir Percy.

And the other is Bristol De Mai who is the sole Grade 1 winner over fences for Saddler Maker, which is somewhat surprising as such a famed sire in our minds due to the exploits of Apple’s Jade, Alpha Des Obeaux, Janika and so on.

Sadler’s Wells, who has had the biggest influence of all on the Gold Cup in the past 20 years, has had one son in Synchronised win the race in 2012 and three other sons produce a winner each in Don Cossack (Sholokov), Lord Windermere (Oscar) and Kicking King (Old Vic).

This year Sadler’s Wells' son, and current leading sire, Milan has two chances in Santini and Monalee for the illustrious genes to be carried to Gold Cup Glory again and a third in Chris’s Dream who is a great-grandson of Sadler’s Wells through Mahler and Galileo.

Galileo himself hasn’t conquered both the jump and Flat spheres to the level that his father has, but Mahler has shown plenty of promise with subjects such as Ornua, Ms Parfois and OK Corral.

Lostintranslation is another with a celebrity sire in Flemensfirth and is one of two in the field whose sire has already produced a Gold Cup winner (Imperial Commander in 2010).

Flemensfirth is one of the top sires of this generation, still standing in Waterford at the ripe age of 28, he has given us no less than 40 Grade 1 performers to date including Tidal Bay, Waiting Patiently, Flemenstar, Topofthegame and so on.

The remaining four are the formidable French-breds.

Paul Nicholls, the winning-most active trainer of the Gold Cup with four wins under his belt, saddles Clan Des Obeaux again this year. Clan Des Obeaux is by Kapgarde, one of France’s most expensive sires, who along with this Gold Cup challenger, has two other top chasing prospects at the festival next week in A Plus Tard and Fakir D’oudairies, as well as Solo in the Triumph Hurdle.

Gigginstown have put all their hopes and dreams into Delta Work this year for the race in which Michael O’Leary sets all standards. It would be a third win for the leviathan owner and a second with the combination of Gordon Elliott after Don Cossack in 2016. Delta Work is a son of Network, who we know better as the father of Sprinter Sacre – nine time Grade 1 winner and three time Cheltenham Festival winner. He certainly has all the right connections.

Last, but the furthest thing from least, the two Willie Mullins contenders are by two French sires that have been making quite the impact over here in the past couple of years.

Voix Du Nord and Buck’s Boum are the sires of Kemboy and Al Boum Photo respectively.

Not only did they have two winners each at last year’s Festival, but have a host of representatives throughout next week as well including Duc Des Genievres and Dynamite Dollars (Buck’s Boum) and Defi Du Seil, Voix Du Reve, Duca De Thaix and Bachasson (Voix Du Nord).

A dual Group 1 winner on the Flat in France but passing away as a 12-year-old in 2013, Voix Du Nord has posthumously become an elite National Hunt sire, leaving us the likes of those mentioned above as well as past Festival stars Espoir D’Allen and Vroum Vroum Mag.

Buck’s Boum on the other hand, ran over jumps himself (an unfamiliar situation in Britain and Ireland where the majority of jumps horses are gelded) and placed second in a Grade 1 hurdle in France behind Long Run. He launched himself onto the highest platform last year at Cheltenham with the two high-profile winners, namely Duc Des Genievres and Al Boum Photo.

While Voix Du Nord hails from a Flat family, the norm for most National Hunt sires, Buck’s Boum’s pedigree page holds powerful jumps credentials having a big brother none other than Big Buck’s - winner of 10 Grade 1 races including four Stayers' Hurdles, so certainly no question of staying ability there.

Intrinsically different in every way, one even racing over 11 furlongs and the other a mile further, both of these sires started out at stud at the same low fee of €1,500, Voix Du Nord for his own merits and Buck’s Boum for his brothers’ achievements.

Clearly there is no potion or definite pattern to success but both of these sires, who could not be more black and white, have managed to produce, along with their other Grade 1 winners and dual Cheltenham feats last year, two of Ireland’s top three-mile chasers, both Gold Cup winners and both trained by Willie Mullins.

One last point to note in favour of one, if winning the race already wasn’t enough, may be that in France, a sire by the name of Cadoudal is a celebrated moniker due to the accomplishments of his two most famed sons, Long Run and Big Buck’s. He is also second only to Sadler’s Wells in the influence that he has executed on the Gold Cup.

Long Run was Cadoudal’s winner and the last two winners of the Gold Cup are his grandsons – Native River and Al Boum Photo.

The reigning champion is set not just to add himself to the Gold Cup elite, but also his eminent grandsire and trainer.

The prize may have eluded Willie Mullins for 20 years until Al Boum Photo last year, but he may well, in true Mullins fashion, have the first back-to-back winner since Best Mate.

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