On the second day of the 2012 Cheltenham Festival, you’ll find my favourite race of the week, the Champion Bumper. This Grade 1 National Hunt flat race is open to horses aged between four and six and takes place on the Old Course over a distance slightly beyond two miles. Quick Stats Winning small field [...]
On the final day of the 2012 Cheltenham Festival, comes the main event, the Cheltenham Gold Cup. A Grade 1 in stature, the Blue Riband contest is open to horses aged five and above. The Gold Cup is run over three miles, two furlongs and change, on the New Course, with twenty-two fences standing between [...]
On the second day of the 2012 Cheltenham Festival, you’ll find the Neptune Investment Novices’ Hurdle. A Grade 1 in stature, the Neptune is open to novices’ aged four and above and is run over the trip of two miles and five furlongs on the Old Course, with a total of twelve hurdles that require [...]
The graveyard of ‘good things’ that is the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, will as per-usual, be greeted with a vociferous roar as it opens the 2012 Cheltenham Festival. A Grade 1 in stature, the Supreme is open to novices’ aged four and above and consists of an extended two miles on the Old Course, with eight [...]
The David Nicholson Mares Hurdle is a Grade 2 event run over two and a half miles, and has been run now for four years, and has been dominated by Quevega winning the last three. Over the last three years the race has been won by the superstar racemare Quevega and trainer Willie Mullins will [...]
The third race on Thursday will be the eighth renewal of the Ryan Air Chase and the fifth renewal since it gained Grade 1 status. The race is open to horses aged five and above, run over two miles five furlongs, on the Cheltenham New Course, with a total of seventeen fences to be jumped. [...]
The Jewson Novices Chase commences the third day of racing at the Cheltenham Festival. The race is run on the New Course over a distance of two miles and four furlongs, which see’s participant’s jump a total of seventeen fences. Introduced for the first time last year, the race didn’t disappoint attracting a high quality [...]
Tuesday at the Cheltenham Festival never fails to disappoint with quality from start to finish with no fewer than three Grade 1 National Hunt races opening the festival. With the competitive Supreme Novices out of the way the attention firmly turns to the Arkle Chase in which many a Champion Chaser have been spawned. It [...]
I know this is a week away, and we still have some decent racing this weekend to get through but I was browsing through the form earlier and was interested in one at decent odds. The Paddy Power Gold Cup is without doubt the highlight of Cheltenham’s Open meeting, which this year, runs from Friday [...]
Day 1
William Hill Chase
Bensalem is yet to fully convince me over this trip so given Great Endeavour has beaten Sunnyhill Boy on his last three visits here, and has been strongly talked up by the yard; I’ll plump for him with Ogee a bigger priced alternative.