Cheltenham Festival 2021: Gold Cup day – live!

The novice hurdle of choice for future staying chasers, with winners since 2000 including Bobs Worth, who landed the three-mile novice chase and then the Gold Cup in the next two seasons; Minella Indo, who runs in today’s Gold Cup; and Monkfish, who added another Festival success in the Brown Advisory Novice Chase on Wednesday. Penhill, who took the Stayers’ Hurdle a year later, is also on the roll of honour. So who will join them?

Fakiera has been the one for money overnight, supplanting Stattler at the head of the market, while Torygraph is also prominent in the betting. Perhaps Michael O’Leary will avoid accusations of bias by naming one of his horses “The Grauniad” when he gets a moment. Paul Nicholls’ only winner this week was at Taunton on Monday, but Barbados Buck’s and Threeunderthrufive have done little wrong season and along with Tom Lacey’s equally likeable Adrimel, seem likely to offer the most resistance to the Irish onslaught.

Such is the week that Henry de Bromhead and Rachael Blackmore are enjoying that the punters are starting to back them blind, and Champagne Gold could well start favourite here having opened at around 14-1 on Wednesday. He has a fair chance, but a 12lb hike for finishing second at Leopardstown in early February does not make his life any easier.

Ganapathi, meanwhile, raced in Grade One company last time and finished a close-ish second in a Grade Two in January, yet carries 4lb less than Blackmore’s mount here, which just doesn’t feel right. Elsewhere in the field, Denise Foster’s Eclair De Beaufeu is also prominent in the betting and can boast some decent course form – albeit over fences – when second here last year in the Grand Annual Chase.

Third Time Lucki bids to improve Dan Skelton’s record in this race to what would be a fairly mind-boggling four out of the last six, while Fifty Ball and Edwardstone represent the Betfair Hurdle form having finished second and third at Newbury last month.

Anyone who is in front after 27 races can kick back and let this one pass (as if). The rest of us are pretty much obliged to make one final stab at the “getting out” race, which offers up no end of possibilities.

Gavin Cromwell’s Gabynako is the one for money this morning, and threatens to overtake the Willie Mullins-trained Gentleman De Mee at the top of the market at some stage, but desperate situations call for desperate measures and I’m going to take a very small each-way interest in Nicky Henderson’s Adjali at around – gulp – 66-1.

He’s that price for a reason in terms of his overall profile, but his mark has started to ease, he’s lightly-raced for a six-year-old and looked like a very decent prospect a couple of seasons ago.

Say hello to the Festival’s new arrival, a two-and-a-half mile chase for mares and a race which Willie Mullins will probably waste no time adding to his collection.

Mullins fields the first two in the betting – odds-on Elimay and Colreevy – and two more besides, while an Irish-trained winner is all but a certainty as Denise Foster and Jessica Harrington supply the other fancied runners. The shortest-priced contender from a British yard, in fact, is Nigel Twiston-Davies’s Zambella at 33-1.

Professionals replace the amateurs for one year only, in a race that has gone to Ireland in seven of the last 10 years and has an Irish-trained favourite in Willie Mullins’s Billaway with Paul Townend in the saddle.

He was a pretty smooth winner in a big field at Naas last time and was the 10-length runner-up when 11-4 favourite for this last year, but he can make the odd mistake and will be just as short a price this time around.

The main hope from a British yard is Paul Nicholls’s Bob And Co (Sean Bowen), in a race that the trainer has won four times since 2004 and twice in the last four years. His stable jockey Harry Cobden, though, is on Chameron, a horse that is part-owned by Nicholls and trained by Sam Loxton, whose late wife Rose, who died last year, was a champion trainer in the point-to-point field for many years. Rose Loxton had links to the Nicholls stable for many years, including as the groom of the outstanding staying hurdler Big Buck’s, and had a big influence on the riding career of Nicholls’s daughter, Megan, with a regular supply of point-to-point winners when she was a teenager.

Even by its own very high standards, this year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup – sponsored by local childrens’ charity WellChild – is rich with potential storylines and dramas, so much so in fact that Al Boum Photo’s attempt to become only the fifth horse ever to win the race three times has been somewhat overshadowed.

Rachael Blackmore hopes to become the first female rider to win, and so does Bryony Frost on Frodon. Henry de Bromhead could be the first trainer ever to win the “Big Three” at a single Festival, Colin Tizzard goes for one more big-race win before retirement with Native River, British racing attempts to salvage something from the wreckage of just four winners on the first three days … the list goes on.

Al Boum Photo has to be the place to start, though, as his course-and-distance form could hardly be any better and he is all but guaranteed to run his race. He’s unlikely to actually improve too much either though, and an up-and-comer like A Plus Tard could well be too sprightly for the nine-year-old. A Plus Tard has raced over three miles just twice, putting up a career best at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting where he needed every yard of it, and Minella Indo, a Grade One winner over hurdles two years ago, is a useful second-string for de Bromhead. Frodon took the King George at Christmas, loves the track and gets on famously with Bryony Frost, as does Native River with Richard Johnson, returning to the scene of their epic head-to-head with Might Bite three years ago.

The novice Royale Pagaille has come from nowhere to be a contender on the basis of a remarkable run under top weight in the Peter Marsh Chase at Haydock, and along with Champ, forms the core of the home-based challenge at the end of a week when Irish dominance has reached new heights.

The novice hurdle of choice for future staying chasers, with winners since 2000 including Bobs Worth, who landed the three-mile novice chase and then the Gold Cup in the next two seasons; Minella Indo, who runs in today’s Gold Cup; and Monkfish, who added another Festival success in the Brown Advisory Novice Chase on Wednesday. Penhill, who took the Stayers’ Hurdle a year later, is also on the roll of honour. So who will join them?

Fakiera has been the one for money overnight, supplanting Stattler at the head of the market, while Torygraph is also prominent in the betting. Perhaps Michael O’Leary will avoid accusations of bias by naming one of his horses “The Grauniad” when he gets a moment. Paul Nicholls’ only winner this week was at Taunton on Monday, but Barbados Buck’s and Threeunderthrufive have done little wrong season and along with Tom Lacey’s equally likeable Adrimel, seem likely to offer the most resistance to the Irish onslaught.

Such is the week that Henry de Bromhead and Rachael Blackmore are enjoying that the punters are starting to back them blind, and Champagne Gold could well start favourite here having opened at around 14-1 on Wednesday. He has a fair chance, but a 12lb hike for finishing second at Leopardstown in early February does not make his life any easier.

Ganapathi, meanwhile, raced in Grade One company last time and finished a close-ish second in a Grade Two in January, yet carries 4lb less than Blackmore’s mount here, which just doesn’t feel right. Elsewhere in the field, Denise Foster’s Eclair De Beaufeu is also prominent in the betting and can boast some decent course form – albeit over fences – when second here last year in the Grand Annual Chase.

Third Time Lucki bids to improve Dan Skelton’s record in this race to what would be a fairly mind-boggling four out of the last six, while Fifty Ball and Edwardstone represent the Betfair Hurdle form having finished second and third at Newbury last month.

Former stable companions Quilixios and Zanahiyr head the market for an eight-runner Triumph, which in terms of numbers at least is a pale shadow of the 28-runner spectacles that once marked the start of proceedings on Gold Cup day.

The arrival of the juvenile handicap hurdle on Tuesday has done for those, though eight runners is an unusually small turnout even by modern standards.

Quilixios, of course, was in the Gordon Elliott stable until shortly before it turned into the Denise Foster stable a week and a half ago, and has attracted plenty of money overnight as Rachael Blackmore is in the saddle on Henry de Bromhead’s runner.

Tritonic, on the other hand, is on the retreat in the market, and after a brutal three days for British-trained runners, it is understandable. On the other hand, his form looks rock-solid, and he is, by Alan King’s own admission, the best Flat horse that he has ever sent over hurdles.

The shape of the race makes it hard to see a winner from outside the top three in the betting, although David Pipe’s Adagio was very impressive in the Finale at Chepstow and stormed to victory in the trial over course and distance at the December meeting.

Good morning from Cheltenham on Gold Cup day, ahead of a Friday afternoon that could well deliver an “I was there” moment, even though there’s no-one here. Rachael Blackmore seems likely to set off as joint-favourite at least to win the Gold Cup on A Plus Tard at 3.05, and victory in the Festival’s showpiece event would make her the first rider since Norman Williamson in 1995 to win both the Champion Hurdle and the Gold Cup at the same Festival.

Oh, and the first female jockey to win the Gold Cup, of course, but then that was only ever a matter of time, because men and women have been competing as equals in racing for decades…

Anyway, Blackmore is having an almost Dettori-like effect on the betting markets on Friday morning, having racked up five winners over the first three afternoons including doubles on both Wednesday and Thursday. She is also 1-6 to end the week as leading rider – Jack Kennedy (6-1) and Paul Townend (14-1) are the only plausible rivals still standing – and has an obvious chance for a sixth winner of the week on Quilixios in the opener.

Blackmore has five rides on today’s card while Kennedy – who is 2-0 up in terms of second places, which could be significant if it comes to a countback – has six. The Triumph Hurdle at the top of the card is the most interesting head-to-head between the two, as Quilixios and Kennedy’s mount Zanahiyr were stable companions at the Gordon Elliott yard until three weeks ago. A win for Blackmore should pretty much seal the deal in terms of the top jockey prize, while Kennedy getting to within one winner would open it right up.

Simon Claisse, Cheltenham’s head of racing, reports this morning that the ground has continued to dry, and the going is now good-to-soft, good in places. Some thoughts on possible winners this afternoon are here, and all the news, views and images of one of the great days in the racing calendar will be here all afternoon. Good luck and enjoy the ride!