Neil Morrice takes an in-depth look at all of the marquee races for Cheltenham Festival 2023.
Day 1: Race 4 Unibet Champions Hurdle Challenge Trophy
Fact file:
- Run over the Old Course over two miles and half a furlong, the Champion Hurdle has eight hurdles to be jumped and carries a winner’s purse of £253,215.
- The Grade 1 contest is what it says on the tin – the Championship decider which since its inception in 1927 has heralded some of the greatest hurdlers to have ever looked through a bridle.
- Hatton’s Grace, Sir Ken, Persian War, See You Then and Istabraq are the only triple winners of the first-day feature, though many would argue that dual winners such as Night Nurse, Monksfield, Bula and Comedy Of Errors were equally as good.
- As a one time winner, Dawn Run was the second mare to triumph in the contest before going onto to become the only horse to win a Champion Hurdle and a Gold Cup.
- Legendary owner JP McManus is the leading owner with nine successes, and his colours may be carried by the 2020 winner Epatante.
2023’s Renewal
Nicky Henderson will crown an illustrious training career should CONSTITUTION HILL provide the master of Seven Barrows Stables in Lambourn with his 9th success in the contest.
Last season’s effortless Supreme Hurdle victor has gone on to look invincible with his triumphs in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle and the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton Park. Trading at 1.25 with Hollywoodbets, the gelding pleased connections in a racecourse gallop at Kempton Park on Tuesday.
Big race pilot Nico de Boinville put CONSTITUTION HILL through his paces under the watchful eyes of Henderson and owner Michael Buckley, and was suitably delighted.
EPATANTE worked in a separate group under Aidan Coleman, but a decision on which race the mare heads for in a fortnight is still to be finalised. She was according to Henderson carrying some condition, and needed the workout as much as any of the horses that went to Kempton. There remains a possibility that she could tackle the Mares’ Hurdle.
At odds of 3.50 STATE MAN poses the greatest threat to Constitution Hill. The Willie Mullins-trained gelding has taken his form to a new level this season, but in dominating horses like the regressing reigning champion Honeysuckle and stablemate Vauban he’s not done enough to unduly worry the growing army of supporters of the favourite. However, from a betting perspective State Man would be an ‘each way steal’ should his price lengthen to 4.00.
Prediction: 1st CONSTITUTION HILL, 2nd State Man, 3rd Epatante (if absent, Vauban)
Day 2: Race 4 Betway Queen Mother Champions Chase
Fact file:
- The Queen Mother Champion Chase highlights Day 2 of the Festival. The enthusiastic Ladies’ Day crowd will hail the fastest chaser in Great Britain and Ireland in a contest that has grown in popularity to rival the Gold Cup as the most prestigious Chase at the meeting.
- Run over a total of 12 fences, Irish horses dominated in the early years until into the Eighties when Badsworth Boy became the only triple winner with his victories between 1983 and 1985. Michael Dickinson later hailed Badsworth Boy as the best horse he’d ever trained.
- Pearlyman and Barnbrook Again were charismatic dual winners, while One Man astonished the many that thought he would never win at the Festival by scorching up the final hill to take the 1998 running for trainer Gordon Richards.
- Moscow Flyer and Sprinter Sacre achieved the rare feat of losing their crowns only to regain them, while the latter’s stable companion Altior notched back-to-back successes for the Henderson team in 2018 and 2019.
2023′ Renewal
The 2022 victress ENERGUMENE blotted her copybook in the Grade 1 Clarence House Chase over the Queen Mother course and distance when only third to shock scorer EDITEUR DU GITE, and is disputing favouritism at 2.62 with EDWARDSTONE in the Hollywoodbets book.
Edwardstone, a superb winner of the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown before falling in the Desert Orchid Chase at Kempton, put his head in front on the run-in only to be denied in the last couple of strides.
It appears former handicapper Editeur Du Gite has closed the gap on his more fashionable rivals and his front-running tactics might unnerve Energumene for a second time.
GENTLEMAN DE MEE has beaten Edwardstone (who was over the top) and appeals as each-way value at a double-figure price but granted a level playing field EDWARDSTONE should take his revenge on Editeur Du Gite.
Prediction: 1st EDWARDSTONE, 2nd Editeur Du Gite, 3rd Gentleman De Mee
Day 3: Race 3 Ryanair Chase
Fact File
- St Patrick’s Thursday welcomes the action switched to the New Course, and the featured Ryanair Chase sees the field covering and extended two and a half miles and jumping 17 fences.
- It was one of several new races that were introduced to the Festival when a fourth day was added to the meeting in 2005. Previously the Cathcart Chase formed the final race of the meeting, but it was then restricted to first and second season chasers only.
- Willie Mullins is the leading trainer of winners of this race, with a total of five successes. He landed the prize in back-to-back years with Allaho in 2021 and 2022 but that horse is sadly sidelined and cannot attempt to complete the hat-trick.
- Always run at a fast and furious pace where no quarter is taken or given, the Ryanair’s best winner was Imperial Commander, who following his victory in 2009 went on to capture the Gold Cup.
2023’s Renewal
Since his much-celebrated triumph in the Ascot Chase, the Hollywoodbets market on this has been all about SHISHKIN, trading as a 1.80 race favourite. The former champion novice hurdler and chaser blotted his copybook in last season’s Queen Mother Champion Chase after which he was found to be suffering from a rare bone condition that needed time to repair.
Following his defeat in the Tingle Creek last December Nicky Henderson elected to try the Sholokhov gelding over two miles and five furlongs which resulted in an impressive defeat of Pic D’Orhy.
Underneath the favourite Irish horses dominate, headed by BLUE LORD at odds of 4.33. Even though the Willie Mullins-trained gelding suffered the ignominy of being turned over as a 1-4 shot in the Grade 1 Dublin Chase at Leopardstown he came back with excuses as his jockey felt he ran flat.
The winner of that race was GENTLEMAN DE MEE who left his disappointing run in the Tingle Creek light years behind. The seven-year-old relishes the drier spring ground that he will almost certainly experience at the Festival, and in my view is over-priced at around 10.0 if his connections opt for this race.
CONFLATED fell in this 12 months ago, finished second in the Aintree Bowl and after needing his first outing this season impressively landed the Grade 1 Savills Chase at Leopardstown while remaining at three miles. Gordon Elliott’s charge is adaptable and won’t mind returning to the shorter distance, while his latest effort was boosted by Kemboy at Fairyhouse.
Giving out each way appeal is FURY ROAD, who stayed on strongly at the business end of the Savills and gives Elliott a powerful second strong to his bow.
Prediction: 1st SHISHKIN, 2nd Fury Road, 3rd Conflated, 4th Blue Lord
Day 4: Race 4 Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup
Fact File:
- The three-and-a-quarter-mile Gold Cup is the blue riband of steeplechasing. The runners will jump 22 fences racing on the New Course.
- For five-year-olds and up, its roll of honour features household names such as Arkle, Mill House, Golden Miller, Desert Orchid and Kauto Star.
- After the Vincent O’Brien-trained Cottage Rake became the first multiple winner in the late Forties, fellow Irish trainer Tom Dreaper dominated the contest with the incomparable Arkle, who when completing his third and final success in the 1966 running stated at the shortest odds ever recorded for the race at 1-10.
2023’s Renewal
GALOPIN DES CHAMPS heads the Hollywoodbets ante-post book on the Gold Cup at 2.50. Since being sent chasing in late 2021 the seven-year-old has started odds-on for each of his six starts and his only blemish came when he fell in the Turners Novices’ Chase at last year’s Festival.
He was a dozen lengths clear at the time of that final fence spill and has gone on to hack up in three subsequent races, latterly when asserting on the run in to run out a clear cut winner of the Paddy Power Irish Gold Cup at the Dublin Racing Festival.
BRAVEMANSGAME is England’s ‘big white hope’ and at odds of 8.00 makes plenty of appeal. His trainer Paul Nicholls has saddled four winners of the race including twice with the brilliant Kauto Star. Fourteen years have elapsed since that one’s second triumph in 2009, and in Bravemansgame the champion trainer believes he has a horse of similar ilk.
The eight-year-old intentionally missed the 2022 Festival only to disappoint at Aintree, but he’s come back to take out the Grade 2 Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby and the Grade 1 King George V Chase at Kempton, in the last-named race taking advantage of L’Homme Presse’s last fence fall to come home unchallenged.
The 2022 Gold Cup hero A PLUS TARD is an enigma, as on his only start this season he was pulled up when odds-on for the Betfair Chase at Haydock. Henry De Bromhead has nurtured his charge towards an attempt to retain his crown, and it would be a phenomenal training performance if the Cheveley Park Stud-owned nine-year-old triumphs.
If there was to be an upset, Scotland’s AHOY SENOR could provide it.
Though held on King George running, he triumphed in an all-northern finish to the Cotswold Chase here at the end of January from Sounds Russian, but he would need to enjoy an uncontested lead next month, which is more unlikely than likely to happen.
Prediction: 1st BRAVEMANSGAME, 2nd Galopin Des Champs, 3rd Ahoy Senor
