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What were the highlights and low points of the meeting?
Highs: Danny Mullins was brilliant on Flooring Porter but I believe the high point was right at the very start of the week. Constitution Hill was incredible.
Low: Wet Wednesday was not one of Cheltenham’s greatest days, reaching its nadir when Michael O’Leary and Gordon Elliott thought it would be a marvellous idea to run a former Gold Cup contender against Tiger Roll in the great horse’s swansong. Genius.
High has to be standing on the finishing line roaring Vauban home after thinking he’d lost it with a poor jump at the last, having come to the last on the bridle, best moment in my horse racing life for sure.
Also watching A Plus Tard win the way it did was breath taking, as was the finish to the hunter chase especially considering it was the Fav that got up, the crowd were loving it, what an atmosphere.
Low has to be the Wednesday as well, was watching on tv fortunately that day and was gutted when Skiskin pulled up.
Plenty of highs and lows, as always. My high points include Constitution Hill’s amazing performance in the Supreme and Venetia Williams putting up the best effort of any trainer given her ammunition.
The main low was losing some extremely talented horses to injury. It never gets any easier to stomach. It was a real shame when Galopin Des Champs came down at the last too but at least he lives to fight another day.
Highest high, nothing was going to better the first race:
Constitution Hill.
Race times together with sectionals tell us he’s the best novice hurdler we have ever seen.
Has a good chance of being to hurdling what Frankel was to the Flat and Arkle was to chasing.
ie Could easily be the best ever hurdler in the making.Value Is EverythingThere were lots and lots of highs thankfully
Two lows I can think of would be Ginto getting injured and tiger roll being denied a 20 length win and 6th festival win in his last race by delta work
Highs: The Vauban win from a punting viewpoint, Honeysuckle for keeping her unbeaten run going, and Elimay for showing guts to win in the finish of the week for me.
Lows: All the horses that lost their lives. RIP.Yes I totally agree with Final Furlong as Tiger Roll has become the people’s horse. It would have been the perfect ending and he may have been the only public horse people related to. Joe in the street. A lady friend of ours backed him twice when he won the Grand Nationals and strangely it meant so much to her and she has a lot of health problems. I missed the Champion hurdle as I had rather mundane but important things to deal with that day.
When I woke up at 1.25pm on the first day, and switched on the menace the camera spent some time on Constitution Hill, in fact he was the first Cheltenham horse I saw. I was very impressed by the look of him. Not too large but perfectly formed and he looked so at ease in his skin. I thought he would win and watching him win in such a facile way was my abiding memory. Yes Tiger Roll was the most emotional watch possibly just eclipsing the fascinating Gold Cup.High …from a betting point of view Sir Gerrard , his performance in that ground after pulling hard points towards him being high class , if he stays over hurdles then we could have the best CH in years
Low Champion Chase …should have known something we go wrong to spoil it , fingers crossed we get it next year
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
Mike has just reminded me of Honeysuckle’s fifteenth ! That was something special to watch. Marvellous !
( Snap we posted simultaneously ! )
Agree it was good to see Venetia Williams having winners at the Festival again, especially L’Homme Presse emerging as a future Gold Cup contender. She had a few horses run well at huge prices.
Also good to see Alan King have a welcome change of luck and get back in the Festival winners enclosure. Edwardstone was very good and (from a personal point of view) landed a nice bet which set me up for the week.
Agreed CAS on Edwardstone , had to play when he hit 3s , priced on King being the trainer simply as that , e adds another dimension to next year’s Arkle , he’s not flashy but if the top horses don’t bring there A game he,ll take advantage
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
I completely enjoyed watching the apparently irascible Coole Cody put it back in after being headed 3 out.
“He’s an absolute warrior,” the rider said. “He got cut up on the bend and that just put more fire in his belly. Once I pulled him out, he wasn’t letting them past again.
“For a moment in my mind I thought ‘that’s me gone’ but I’ve pulled him out, given him a crack and I could feel the fire in his belly. He’s an angry horse but that made him angrier.”
It was a Festival with high quality performances in the races that define a proper Festival: the G1 Championship races.
Number one of the highs has to be HDB and RB winning a second CH on Honeysuckle and saddling the first two in the GC. Imagine a jockey/trainer combo having won those 2 races 20-25 ago. People would have gone mad…
I like Constitution Hill a lot, but he was only winning a novice hurdle in a very fast time. He is highly talented, but let him develop properly outside of novice company. Another proper and very professional looking horse was Edwardstone. I hope he keeps on improving and connections know how to place him.
The lows: obviously any loss of equine life and a weak Turners’ Chase with a very unfortunate outcome.
Also that big-mouth who seem gone at the very highest level: Paul Nicholls
Has to be flooring porter and Danny mullins. Just a brilliant ride and horsemanship from mullins. So deserves it and the horse is so gutsy.
Low. Yet another Patrick Mullins whip offence. He knows from experience that the penalties for transgressing are far too weak.
I believe he went over the limit by 1. Given the circumstances of how he was closing and the horse was responding, I doubt he was counting or was ever going to put his whip down and ride out hands and heels.
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