Since the inception of the Prestbury Cup – that is, the official competition between British- and Irish-trained horses at the Cheltenam Festival – in 2014, the closest the home team have come to winning was a 14-14 draw in 2019. Unsurprisingly, Ireland was long odds-on to win again in 2025 and did so in style, by 20-8, the biggest winning margin since the infamous 23-5 'greenwash' in 2021. The results on the fourth and final day, Gold Cup Day, made particularly grim reading for British supporters, with Willie Mullins winning the first four races and Gavin Cromwell, Sam Curling and Gordon Elliott chipping in with a winner apiece for an Irish clean sweep of all seven races on the card.
To be fair to Cromwell, who also won the Cross Country Chase with Stumptown the previous day, "chipping in" hardly does justice to his achievement in winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup with Inothewayurthinkin, owned by J.P. McManus and ridden by Mark Walsh. Beforehand, most of the hype revolved around Galopin Des Champs, trained by Willie Mullins and ridden by Paul Townend, who was attempting to become the first horse since Best Mate, in 2004, to win the 'Blue Riband' event three years running. Still only a nine-year-old, Galopin Des Champs was sent off at odds-on to complete the hat-trick, but when push came to shove he had no answer to his younger rival, who readily drew clear in the closing stages to win by six lengths.
Mullins, though, enjoyed an exemplary week, even by his standards. He saddled 10 winners over the four days, including Fact To File, ridden by Mark Walsh, in the Ryanor Chase, to equal his own record, set in 2022, and become leading trainer for the seventh year running. His stable jockey, Paul Townend, with four winners, just edged out Walsh on countback to become the leading jockey for the fifth time in six years.
The feature race on day one, the Champion Hurdle, was a highly eventful affair. Odds-on favourite Constitution Hill fell at the fourth-last flight and the 2024 winner, State Man, fell when five lengths ahead at the final flight. The eventual winner was 25/1 chance Golden Ace, trained by Jeremy Scott and ridden by Lorcan Williams.
No comments:
Post a Comment