With the Cheltenham Festival just round the corner, we know most of the targets for the big guns.
Some are still open to question.
There’s little doubt punters will be frustrated about the lack of concrete information given on the likes of Lossiemouth, Fact To File, Gaelic Warrior and Mighty Park.
They are just four of the Willie Mullins-trained aces that plans have been kept rather discreet, although the usually informative Betfair Exchange has been pointing Fact To File at the Ryanair Chase over the Gold Cup all week.
With less than two weeks to go, Mullins bingo casts a familiar cloud over the big races. This is the usual show of strength from the team at Closutton. If you have the best cards in poker, you don’t reveal them until as late as possible.
Punters don’t really come into the equation for powerful connections. We’ll be told when we won’t to be told. Nothing will be declared until the time is right. With so many stars having so many options then it’s little wonder Mullins plays the waiting game the best.
Fact To File won the Irish Gold Cup but looks likely to swerve the Cheltenham equivalent
Jockey Mark Walsh with the Irish Gold Cup trophy at Leopardstown
Willie Mullins has plenty of firepower and it’s little wonder he’s making late decisions
He also has a wide spread of owners to keep happy and informed. JP McManus being the most significant one. Step forward the Fact To File and Mighty Park quandaries.
While much punting ire will be directed at the yard for dithering over the usual suspects, Cheltenham’s absurd programme book allows for this to exist. It’s a classic case of don’t hate the player hate the game.
Take Lossiemouth for instance. I’ve little doubt the minor schedule tweak of moving this race from the Tuesday on the Old Course to the Thursday on the New Course was designed, in part, to force Mullins’ hand to run the mare in the Champion Hurdle.
A subtle shift to a stamina-laden course? Yes, that might work.
What would work, however, is downgrading the race to a Grade Two. Let’s face it. That is essentially the grade the Mares’ Hurdle operates in. And if you want to run a top-class mare in her prime like Lossiemouth in here then you can but you will be carrying a Grade One penalty and conceding weight to rivals.
That would leave both doors open but the one filled with sporting merit would have greater appeal. When Honeysuckle conquered both, the Mares at the start and end of her brilliant career, and two Champion Hurdles in between was the perfect template for how a leading top-class mare ought to be campaigned.
The mares programme is now established enough to cope with this hit. It would also align the Mares’ Hurdle with the Mares’ Chase and the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle in all being Grade Twos.
There is an even bigger case in demoting the Ryanair Chase to a Grade Two. It will never carry the prestige of a Champion Chase or Gold Cup so why pretend it deserves Grade One status.
The primary purpose of this race is to dodge or split up Gold Cup or Champion Chase contenders. This year’s renewal is poised to take the biscuit. The Irish Gold Cup winner won’t attempt the double in favour of retaining his Ryanair title. Seriously.
Forget any fancy ante-post betting slips or any multi that predictably has Fact To File in the Ryanair as the lynchpin. As a sporting decision, it’s hugely underwhelming.
It’s like a top football team actively going the Europa League route because it’s more winnable than the Champions League. Plainly, it’s ridiculous.
Lossiemouth has won two Mares’ Hurdle but there’s clamour for her to run in the Champion
Again, the Ryanair should be a Grade Two. The Jockey Club also own Aintree and that track on Grand National weekend have a wonderful programme for Grade One horses over the intermediate trip.
Basically, if you have a Grade One two-and-a-half miler then Aintree or/and Fairyhouse is for you. But carrying a penalty in a Grade Two because Cheltenham is Cheltenham is still an option for Festival-obsessed connections. Or, better still, chance your arm in the Champion Chase or Gold Cup.
The very best horses can be trip and ground versatile. Jango Baie won the Arkle over two miles last season and is vying for Gold Cup favouritism. Desert Orchid won over a variety of trips at the top level. As did Kauto Star.
We’ve been pigeon-holed into thinking very one-dimensionally in this sport and dull campaigning and poor programme planning is to blame.
The two-and-a-half-mile Turners Novices’ Chase was scrapped last season and turned into a novices’ handicap, so it’s completely out of kilter with the Ryanair.
Top novice Romeo Coolio looks the chief loser out of all this but connections seem sporting enough to roll the dice in either the Arkle or the Brown Advisory.
Impaire Et Passe was not so lucky. A breathtaking winner of the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle, he remarkably hasn’t been to Cheltenham since.
A failed Champion Hurdle campaign in 2024 was followed by the no-show because of the Turners being scrapped. He duly won at Aintree.
But it can easily be argued that had Mullins had less firepower, he’d have won a truly dreadful Brown Advisory last year. It’s a race that no horse has won out of since. The only race of last year’s Festival to throw up no subsequent winners.
He’d be a big player in a Ryanair Chase but alas it will be Aintree once more. He’s now strangely down the pecking order at Closutton.
And that’s the space you are in when one yard has so many top horses. Even Cheltenham can’t cater for them all. But it can do better in pointing the best ones in the right direction and making the Mares’ Hurdle and the Ryanair Chase a Grade Two would be a good move for the sport.
