Four of the six odds-on favourites over the first two days of this year’s festival were beaten, leaving many punters in a deep hole ahead of the last day of the meeting on Friday. It will be the most significant shock of all, however, if Galopin Des Champs (4.00) does not deliver for the backers in the Gold Cup and join the very select list of horses to have won the race three times.
Having beaten double-figure fields in the last two runnings, Willie Mullins’s chaser faces eight opponents this time around, and while the unexpected addition of Inothewayurthinkin, the favourite for next month’s Grand National, to the lineup adds some intrigue, he was seven lengths behind Galopin Des Champs at Leopardstown.
Unlike Banbridge, the King George VI Chase winner at Kempton in December, Inothewayurthinkin should improve for this return to further than three miles, but the same is undoubtedly true of the favourite and Galopin Des Champs’ place in the pantheon appears to be there for the taking.
Cheltenham 1.20 James Owen’s East India Dock has already posted two outstanding performances for a juvenile at this track when successful at both the November and December meetings. Both wins were recorded in notably fast times and a repeat of either performance would probably be enough here, although further progress from this hugely promising four-year-old would be no great surprise either.
Cheltenham 2.00 A fast pace looks certain even with a relatively small field of 16 for the County Hurdle, and that should play to the strengths of Willie Mullins’s Kargese as the trainer looks for a sixth win in this race in the last 11 years.
Cheltenham 2.40 Dinoblue looked a little unlucky to come up three-quarters of a length short of the re-opposing Limerick Lace in this race 12 months ago, when she was more patiently ridden than usual attempting the trip for the first time. A reversion to more aggressive tactics could see her turn around the form.
Cheltenham 3.20 The most unpredictable Grade One event at the meeting, with just one winner at a single-figure price in the last 11 years, but it looks like the right spot for the Jamie Snowden-trained Wendigo, the runner-up behind Wednesday’s Turners Novice Hurdle winner, The New Lion, in the Challow Hurdle contest at Newbury in December.
Quick Guide
Greg Wood’s Friday tips
Show
Cheltenham 1.20 East India Dock (nap) 2.00 Kargese (nb) 2.40 Dinoblue 3.20 Wendigo 4.00 Galopin Des Champs 4.40 Angels Dawn 5.20 Kopeck De Mee
Fakenham 1.35 Zafaan 2.14 Taxus Baccata 2.54 Jackpot Cash 3.34 Little Soiree 4.15 Bluegrass 4.55 Go Go Geronimo
Doncaster 1.42 Our Lil 2.22 Reallyntruthfully 3.02 Burrows Hall 3.40 Diamond Dealer 4.25 Baby Chou 5.00 Jaffa Cake
Southwell 4.20 Captain Parma 4.50 Fulford Cross 5.30 Romantic Opera 6.00 King Of York 6.30 Legal Reform 7.00 Feel The Need 7.30 Fivethousandtoone 8.00 Sax Appeal 8.30 Commander Of Life
Wolverhampton 5.10 Hoodie Hoo 5.45 Atlantic Sunset 6.20 Tempus 6.50 Stroxx 7.20 Rogue Tornado 7.50 Mr Trick 8.20 Tuco Salamanca
Cheltenham 4.40 Angels Dawn has a decent record here, having won the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir in 2023, and was still travelling well when she fell five out in the same race last season. This looks an easier assignment and she gets a useful 7lb mares’ allowance from her 23 rivals.
Cheltenham 5.20 It must have been a thankless task for the handicapper to rate Kopeck De Mee, who was bought by JP McManus after a Listed win in France in May 2024, and he could well take this race apart on his handicap debut.
Blackmore at the double
Rachael Blackmore, who was the first female jockey to win the prize for the festival’s leading rider in 2021, added another significant achievement to her Cheltenham record on Thursday as she steered Bob Olinger to an 8-1 success in the Stayers’ Hurdle, the only one of the five biggest races at the meeting that had previously eluded her.
Bob Olinger was the apparent second-string of two runners in the colours of owner Brian Acheson, behind the favourite and defending champion, Teahupoo, from the Gordon Elliott yard. Bob Olinger, though, boasted a proud festival record, having won Grade One events here in both 2021 and 2022.
Henry de Bromhead’s 10-year-old was a 20-1 shot on Thursday morning, but plenty of support forced his price down to 8-1 at the off and Blackmore delivered him with impeccable timing to take the measure of Teahupoo at the final flight.
“Rachael was brilliant on him,” de Bromhead said. “We said, if you’re going to get beaten, get beaten for coming too late.
“He’s an incredible horse, he had such a reputation a few years ago, things didn’t work out as well as we thought, but to see him come back and do that is amazing.”
Blackmore was completing a 152-1 double on the day having taken the opening Mares’ Novice Hurdle on Air Of Entitlement, while the second feature on the day, the Ryanair Chase, was won with a dominant performance by Willie Mullins’s Fact To File, the 6-4 favourite.
Fact To File ran well for a long way behind his stable companion, Galopin Des Champs, in the Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown last month and his emphatic success boosted the form of that race.
“The manner that he won was a bit of a surprise,” Willie Mullins, Fact To File’s trainer, said, “but I felt coming here that he would win it.
“He might have been the horse to give Galopin Des Champs a battle tomorrow [but] JP [McManus, his owner] didn’t want him to have a hard race in the Gold Cup this year. Sometimes that can ruin a horse’s career, but another year might be right.”