John Ingles provides an overview of the key things to note on day two of the Cheltenham Festival.
Jumping key to Majborough’s Champion Chase bid
Earlier in the season, 'Hot Trainer' Willie Mullins’ best chance of winning Wednesday’s highlight, the Queen Mother Champion Chase (16:00), looked to be with Il Etait Temps. Since finishing third to stablemate Gaelic Warrior in the 2024 Arkle, Il Etait Temps had won his next five races, including the Celebration Chase at Sandown at the end of last season, after a year’s absence, and the Tingle Creek Chase at the same track in December. In both races, Il Etait Temps had been chased home by Jonbon, but he was looking held by the same rival – last year’s Champion Chase runner-up - when falling heavily two out in the Clarence House Chase at Ascot.
Instead, it’s stablemate Majborough who has assumed favouritism for the Champion Chase following a much-improved performance to win the Dublin Chase at Leopardstown where he pulled 19 lengths clear of last year’s Champion Chase winner Marine Nationale (absent through injury here), with Found A Fifty, who’d beaten Majborough in the Hilly Way Chase at Cork earlier in the season, back in third. Fitted with cheekpieces for the first time and with regular rider Mark Walsh reverting to positive tactics, Majborough’s improved effort went hand-in-hand with a much sounder round of jumping than has often been the case.
Majborough, who has the 'Horses For Courses' flag – he won the Triumph Hurdle at this meeting two years ago - did well to finish a close third when odds-on for last year’s Arkle, having all but fallen two out, and his tendency to jump left or make mistakes has been evident in some of his other races. But if the headgear works as effectively as it did at Leopardstown, and he’s not caught out by Cheltenham’s demanding fences, Majborough can give his owner J. P. McManus a belated first win in the Champion Chase, having had the runner-up for the last two years. Majborough put up the best performance by any chaser all season last time, and it puts him fully 7 lb clear of Il Etait Temps in the Timeform ratings.
Can Drama go one better than Denman?
After attracting just seven runners in 2021 and 2024, Wednesday’s opener, the Turners Novices’ Hurdle (13:20), or Baring Bingham to give it its registered title, has the look of an old-fashioned Sun Alliance Hurdle as the race was long known. A modern-day maximum field of 22 makes it the largest turn-out since Galileo (the Polish-bred one, should there be any doubt!) beat 26 rivals in 2002. Last year, the Dan Skelton-trained The New One ended a period of Irish domination in the Baring Bingham, and this time it’s the Paul Nicholls-trained No Drama This End who heads the Timeform ratings from several Irish-trained rivals.
Nicholls has yet to win the Baring Bingham, having gone close in 2006 when 11/10 favourite Denman was beaten by the Noel Meade-trained Nicanor. That ended Denman’s unbeaten record, and it remained his only defeat up until then when he won the Gold Cup two years later. Denman had won the Challow Novices’ Hurdle that season, actually run at Cheltenham that year when Newbury’s meeting was abandoned, and No Drama This End became Nicholls’ seventh winner of that race in December. Since Denman, three more of Nicholls’ Challow winners have contested the Baring Bingham, with Bravemansgame faring the best of them when third at Cheltenham in 2021.
Like Denman, who was owned by the late Paul Barber, No Drama This End, who is part-owned by Barber’s sons Chris and Giles, takes an unbeaten record over hurdles into Cheltenham, having suffered his only defeat in five starts under Rules in last season’s Champion Bumper. He was an impressive winner of a Grade 2 novice at Cheltenham on his debut over hurdles in November and followed up in a similar event at Sandown before the Challow. Those wins came in the mud, but the Challow, where he earned the ‘Horse In Focus’ flag, was run on good ground, showing that No Drama This End can handle conditions that put the emphasis on speed, helped by some good jumping. He looks capable of giving Nicholls an overdue first win in this race, twenty years after Denman.
Romeo can lead home Irish in Brown Advisory
There’s another large field for the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase (14:00), 16 runners making it only the second double-figure field since the current sponsors took over in 2021 and the biggest line-up since Denman won the Royal & SunAlliance Chase as it then was in 2007. That’s in contrast to the very small fields for novice chases in Britain this season, so it’s no surprise that only three of this year’s field are home-trained. The Jamie Snowden-trained Wendigo has the highest rating of that trio, but he has no fewer than eight Irish rivals above him in the ratings.
Willie Mullins has won a record seven editions of this race, including the last two with Fact To File and Lecky Watson, and among six runners this year, has a couple of leading contenders in Final Demand and Kaid d’Authie. Final Demand was the ante-post favourite after impressing in his first two starts over fences, though clearly didn’t give his running in the Ladbrokes Novice Chase at the Dublin Racing Festival where Kaid d’Authie showed improved form to win a race which Fact To File had also won on the way to Cheltenham. Henry de Bromhead’s Koktail Divin comes into the reckoning too, having been a wide-margin winner of a beginners chase at Leopardstown in December, another race which Fact To File had won.
But the Irish challenge looks stronger still following Gordon Elliott’s decision to run Romeo Coolio here instead of in Tuesday’s Arkle. Third to Kopek des Bordes in last year’s Supreme, Romeo Coolio has proven better still over fences, winning all four of his starts this season. He started off beating Koktail Divin at Down Royal when both were making their chasing debuts and has run up a Grade 1 hat-trick since in the Drinmore at Fairyhouse, and the Racing Post and Irish Arkle at Leopardstown. Romeo Coolio had to work hard for his latest win over two miles and a furlong, but his stamina saw him through in the end and he earned the ‘Horse In Focus’ flag. Fitted with a hood for the first time, Romeo Coolio heads the Timeform ratings here and looks the one to beat stepping up to a trip that should suit him better.
Cheltenham Festival coverage
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