John Ingles looks at some of the notable victories or achievements that this year's Cheltenham Festival might provide.
Can Sean Bowen ride his first Festival winner?
This will be Sean Bowen’s first Festival as the reigning champion jockey, so what better occasion to break his duck at the meeting? Since partnering Mumbles Head as a 16-year-old amateur for his father Peter in the 2014 Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir, Bowen has ridden at every Festival bar 2020. While his record reads 0-52, realistic winning opportunities in that time have been few and far between.
In fact, the number of his Festival rides that have started at single-figure odds – six - is outweighed by those starting at 100/1 or bigger. He has gone close on three occasions, though, finishing runner-up on Arpege d’Alene in the 2016 Pertemps Final for Paul Nicholls, Fugitif in the 2023 Plate for Richard Hobson and Heads Up in last year’s Champion Bumper for John McConnell.
Bowen’s first Festival winner could conceivably be in the biggest race of all. He missed out on winning last season’s National Hunt Chase with Haiti Couleurs, riding another of his regular mounts Resplendent Grey for Olly Murphy, who is also seeking a first Festival success, instead.
Both chasers hold Gold Cup entries this year, though in the event of both taking their chance (Resplendent Grey is also in the Ultima), Bowen would surely stick with Haiti Couleurs this time, having partnered him to success in the Irish and Welsh Grand Nationals as well as the recent Denman Chase in the last twelve months. Riding his 200th winner of the season last week and with his second championship as good as won already, Bowen has had five winners at Cheltenham this season, notably the December Gold Cup on 33/1-shot Glengouly, and he earned plenty of praise for his perseverance when successful on Wade Out in a listed novice chase in November.
Can Paul Townend become the most successful jockey in Gold Cup history?
Paul Townend currently shares the record for the most Gold Cup wins by a jockey but has another opportunity to achieve that feat outright this year. The first to win the race four times was Arkle’s jockey Pat Taaffe who completed a hat-trick of wins on the greatest Gold Cup winner of them all sixty years ago. His other winner, also trained by Tom Dreaper, came two years later on Fort Leney. Townend also owes his four Gold Cup wins to two horses, Al Boum Photo and Galopin des Champs, both of whom failed in their bids to emulate Arkle by winning a third Gold Cup.
Galopin des Champs, odds on when runner-up to Inothewayurthinkin last year, tries again, with Townend looking likely to remain loyal to him again, even though stablemate Gaelic Warrior, who finished in front of him in the Irish Gold Cup, is ahead of him in the betting. If Townend and Galopin des Champs were to triumph again, it would be a notable feat too for his mount who would become only the second triple winner since Arkle, after Best Mate, the first Gold Cup winner to regain his title since Kauto Star, and the first horse as old as ten to win the Gold Cup this century.
Can Dan Skelton win his first championship race at the Festival?
Willie Mullins has a lot of catching up to do at Cheltenham if he’s to prevent Dan Skelton from taking his title and becoming champion trainer for the first time. Skelton had his first Grade 1 winner at the Festival when Roksana won the Mares’ Hurdle in 2019 thanks to the last-flight fall of Mullins’ Benie des Dieux when having the race at her mercy.
More recently, Skelton has had Grade 1 success with Protektorat, Grey Dawning and The New Lion, winner of last year’s Turners Novices’ Hurdle. But he’s yet to win any of the ‘big four’ championship races, the Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase or Stayers’ Hurdle.
It’s striking that Skelton didn’t even have a runner in any of those four races last season but has contenders for each of them this time, headed by The New Lion, favourite for the Champion Hurdle. Betfair Chase winner Grey Dawning goes in the Gold Cup, Shloer Chase winner L’Eau du Sud has been kept fresh for the Champion Chase since running in the Tingle Creek, while Kabral du Mathan, winner of both his starts since joining Skelton this season, tries three miles for the first time in the Stayers’ Hurdle.
Can J. P. McManus win the Champion Hurdle for the tenth time?
For much of the season, Nicky Henderson could have looked forward to taking his record number of wins in the Champion Hurdle to ten, either with Constitution Hill or Sir Gino. For different well publicised reasons, both have now been ruled out of the race, though Henderson could yet have a runner in the Champion Hurdle, albeit a rank outsider in Lucky Place. You have to go back twenty years for the last time Henderson didn’t have at least one runner in the race. Henderson’s nine Champion Hurdles include four for owner J. P. McManus – Binocular, dual winner Buveur d’Air and Epatante.
But while a tenth Champion Hurdle looks like eluding Henderson this year, McManus has much better prospects of reaching the same milestone thanks to The New Lion, purchased privately after his win in last season’s Challow. McManus won his first three Champion Hurdles with the outstanding Istabraq, while his ninth and latest win came from Epatante in 2020.
Can Willie Mullins make it fifteen in the Champion Bumper…?
The Festival Bumper, as it was originally named, was added to the Festival programme in 1992 and soon became dominated by one stable. Willie Mullins first won the race thirty years ago with Wither Or Which whom he rode as well as trained. Mullins won three of the next four renewals as well – including the first of a record 59 Festival wins for then teenage amateur Ruby Walsh on Alexander Banquet - and has now won nearly half the Champion Bumpers since that first victory in 1996.
Bambino Fever’s win under Jody Townend last year made it six wins for Mullins in the last eight years, bringing his total to fourteen. The wide-margin Naas winner Love Sign d’Aunou heads the ante-post betting for this year’s Champion Bumper, though the stable’s seven entries also include The Irish Avatar, Our Trigger and Quiryn who all made a good impression winning their only starts.
…or five in a row in the Triumph Hurdle?
Mullins has been just as formidable in the Triumph Hurdle of late. It took him a while to win the race again after winning it for the first time with Scolardy in 2002, but he has now won five of the last six editions, including the last four in a row. He saddled eleven runners in last year’s race, three of them making their hurdling debut, and one of those, Poniros caused an upset when winning at 100/1.
A change in the rules means that Mullins won’t be able to attempt something similar this year, but a bigger blow to his hopes of maintaining his stranglehold on the race came when he recently had to rule out ante-post favourite Narciso Has following a setback. As usual, however, Mullins wasn’t relying solely on one horse, and stablemates Proactif, who won well on his Irish debut at Fairyhouse, and Selma de Vary, who was runner-up to Narcsio Has at the Dublin Racing Festival, have replaced him at the head of the Triumph betting. If Mullins does win the Triumph for a seventh time, he’d equal Henderson’s record number of winners.
An eighth consecutive Festival appearance for Envoi Allen
Win or lose, Envoi Allen will achieve a notable feat just by turning up at this year’s Cheltenham Festival. Aimed at the Gold Cup for the first time, Cheveley Park Stud’s twelve-year-old will be making his eighth consecutive appearance at the Festival. His first two runs at Cheltenham, when trained by Gordon Elliott, brought him wins in the Champion Bumper under Jamie Codd and the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle for Davy Russell. Still unbeaten at the time, his first run for Henry de Bromhead ended in the only fall of his career in the Golden Miller Novices’ Chase.
After finishing third in the following season’s Champion Chase, Envoi Allen proved better than ever when beating the favourite Shishkin to win his third Festival race, the Ryanair Chase with Rachael Blackmore in 2023. Envoi Allen has been placed in the last two editions of that contest, finishing second to Protektorat and then third behind Fact To File last year.
On his only start since, he gained a record-breaking third win in the Champion Chase at Down Royal in November. Tiger Roll also ran at eight Festivals, winning five times, but unlike Envoi Allen he missed a year when absent from Cheltenham in 2016.
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