Cheltenham Festival 2018

Gets underway 2 weeks today and there are some great articles on the Racing post website to wet the whistle www.racingpost.com/news/cheltenham-2018/...sitive-update/321048

Bob u beat me to it more to follow ......

Some of the recent steamers

Good read Bob IMHO i dont think the match race/clash between Douvan vs Altior will map out and expect Altior to win the Champion Chase as easy as Baveur Dair will win the Champion Hurdle

Others to watch are Getabird and Footpad they will be the ones to break the bookies

The Cup is an open affair where Native River could beat Might Bite

Looking forward as always and good luck if anyone is attending, well worth the effort

JP McManus on the five festival winners that meant the most
11:15AM 27 FEB 2018
First published on Friday, March 11, 2011

Leading jumps owner JP McManus, who has dozens of festival wins, shares his five most memorable Cheltenham winners.

Mister Donovan (1982)
Mister Donovan winning the SunAlliance Novices' Hurdle, under Tommy Ryan, in 1982 was very special, not only because he won but because I badly needed it at the time. I'd had a disastrous first day at the festival and he got me out of all sorts of trouble which was reflected in his price. He was my first festival winner and while we've been lucky to have had another 31 winners at the meeting, all of them memorable in their own way, your first is always special.

Istabraq (1997, 1998, 1999, 2000)

Istabraq
Istabraq won four times at the festival and his novice win and his three consecutive Champion Hurdle victories are all treasured. There was so much emotion involved with the horse especially because of the late John Durkan's illness. John played such a major part in the Istabraq story. I would never have owned the horse but for him and whenever I think of Istabraq I always think of, and remember, John.

Time For A Run (1994)
Time For A Run's win in the 1994 Coral Cup was special because he was a home-bred. We also bred So Proud, who finished second in the same race, so it was a great result for everyone at Martinstown. I went on to share in a double with Edward O'Grady and Charlie Swan later that day when Mucklemeg won the bumper.

Binocular (2010)

Binocular winning Champion Hurdle, March 2010
After all the success we enjoyed with Istabraq, it was great to win another Champion Hurdle last year when Binocular won for Nicky Henderson and AP. Mention of AP also brings to mind his never-to-be-forgotten ride on Wichita Lineman in the William Hill Trophy Handicap Chase at the 2009 festival when he forced the horse up close home to win by a neck for Jonjo O'Neill and the Jackdaws Castle team.

Elegant Lord (1996)
Trying to pick out five special memories is no easy task as every festival winner you're lucky enough to be involved with is a story in itself. But Elegant Lord winning the 1996 Christie's Foxhunter Chase was memorable as he was trained and ridden by Enda Bolger from our own locality. It was a Cheltenham first for Enda, who is someone I'm very close to. I'd also like to mention Like-A-Butterfly, whom Christy Roche trained to win the Supreme Novices' Hurdle in 2002. She won on the day Istabraq ran his final race and all of my family had a particular interest in her.

For once it looks like the ground might be genuinely soft for the meeting. Plenty of wet weather in the forecast once the frost and snow have gone.

Apples Shakira

If the going is anywhere near good, then go in triple

While Douvan has a better than 50-50 chance of making the Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase, odds-on favourite Altior was picking up the pace at home, Nicky Henderson describing his latest work as "absolutely superb".

A day after Willie Mullins had revealed Douvan is winning his battle to be ready for Cheltenham a fortnight on Wednesday, Henderson took a dozen of his festival hopefuls to Kempton to work on the all-weather circuit.

But he left the best of them in Lambourn, where Altior worked for the first time since making a winning return in the Game Spirit Chase.

"Altior worked this morning very, very well, perfect, absolutely superb," said Henderson. "That's the first gallop he's had since Newbury. He'll do another bit at the weekend. He's a hard horse to work, although I don't think he needs an awful lot."

www.racingpost.com/news/cheltenham-2018/...nham-festival/321185

www.racingpost.com/news/cheltenham-2018/...val-handicaps/321362

Worth a read and listen

Gordon Elliott
The top trainers at the Cheltenham Festival
BY STUART RILEY 4:54PM 6 MAR 2018
Almost every leading jumper in Britain and Ireland is aimed at the Cheltenham Festival, making it fiercely difficult to find winners. However, there are some trainers who whose runners are always worth noting. Here, we run down several of the main players and look at the races they thrive in most

Gordon Elliott
What better place to start than with last year's top trainer? Elliott had his first winners at the festival in 2011 but has already become a fixture, saddling six winners last year to take his festival total to 14. He has a particularly good record in handicap hurdles and chases for amateur riders, with four wins in each, and last year became a major force in the Grade 1s, with three such wins taking his overall tally to five.

Willie Mullins
Elliott pipped Mullins on countback last year, but Mullins was the main man in five of the previous six years and again brings a stacked team to a meeting at which he has saddled 54 winners in total. That 54 unsurprisingly covers all manner of races - the Gold Cup is the main one that still alludes him - but the man who used to be known as the bumper specialist now does particularly well in the mares' races, as well as the novice Grade 1s and handicap hurdles.

Nicky Henderson
The winningmost trainer in festival history has a good chance of holding on to that position, given the strength of the squad he has assembled. He has saddled 58 winners at the meeting, boasting the best record on nine occasions. He does especially well in the Grade 1s, especially with fancied runners, and horses at bigger prices in handicaps over 2m4f or further. He has won the Triumph Hurdle a record six times and saddles this year's favourite Apple's Shakira.

Jessica Harrington
The first lady of Irish racing saddled three winners at last year's meeting, taking her total at the festival to 11. Six of her seven Grade 1 wins have come over fences, while she has also won the Grand Annual and County Hurdle twice. Eight of her 11 winners have come in races over two miles.

Paul Nicholls

Paul Nicholls celebrates winning
He has been top trainer at the meeting six times, with a total of 41 winners, but those looking to find a Ditcheat winner will have lowered their sights since the days of Big Buck's, Master Minded, Denman and Kauto Star. Nicholls is now more of a threat in the handicaps -especially over hurdles. Seven of his last nine winners have been in such contests, while 13 of his last 16 were hurdlers. He does very well with young, unexposed types.

Henry de Bromhead
Perhaps an unusual name for such a list, given he endured a barren run at the festival from 2011 until last year, but before that he won an Arkle, a Cross Country and Champion Chase. Losing his biggest owner was a factor for the time he spent in the festival doldrums, but last year he was back with a bang, with Special Tiara giving him a second Champion Chase and proving his proficiency with two-mile chasers. He also saddled two seconds and two third and has an arguably even stronger team this year.

Nigel Twiston-Davies
Twiston-Davies has saddled 17 festival winners and the local trainer has a superb record in the Grade 1s, with ten winners. Eight of those were novices (if you include Ballyandy's Bumper), while he has also won each of the amateur rider contests, utilising his prodigious conveyor belt of talented young riders. He has also won the Pertemps twice, so give his runners in that a second look.

Jonjo O'Neill
Forza Milan, at 14-1 for the Pertemps, is his only entry priced shorter than 20-1, but he has won that race four times and his festival record of 26 winners overall makes him worthy of respect.

His last Cheltenham Festival scorerr was Minella Rocco in the 2016 National Hunt Chase. That horse was second in the Gold Cup last year and is 20-1 to go one better next week.

Ruby Walsh: Might Bite could be one of the greatest horses we’ve ever seen
BY BRIAN SHEERIN 1:47PM 8 MAR 2018
Ruby Walsh, the most successful jockey at the Cheltenham Festival, believes Gold Cup favourite Might Bite is "potentially one of the greatest horses we've ever seen".

Walsh, who has been top jockey on 11 occasions at the festival and won the Gold Cup aboard Kauto Star in 2007 and 2009, reckons he has yet to see the best of the Nicky Henderson-trained chaser, who on Thursday was a general 7-2 chance for the Timico-backed showpiece on Friday week.

Recalling last year's RSA Chase, in which he finished third behind Might Bite aboard Bellshill, after the winner almost threw the race away when veering violently right at the last, Walsh said: "He has an incredible way of going.

"To ride in last year's RSA was unbelievable. I thought halfway down the back the first time that the horses in front couldn't keep going the pace they were going.

"On the second circuit, I was thinking to myself ‘I'm going to win a distance here, as these lads are going way too quick.' The rest of them up in front did stop but Might Bite didn't.

He added: "When he turned in at the top of the hill, away he went again, further and further in front. When he went to run out after the last, and then got going again, to put it into human terms, if you stop on a treadmill or on a bike, it's very hard to get going again never mind get back into top gear, but Might Bite did just that."

The rider, who was speaking at a media event organised by Paddy Power on the eve of his eagerly awaited return to race-riding at Thurles, added: "If he didn't have that kink in him he'd be 6-4 favourite for the Gold Cup and not 4-1."

Might Bite's King George victory received mixed views with some observers suggesting the close proximity of the runner-up, Double Shuffle, rated 11lb inferior to him at the time, gave a hollow reading to the form.

Walsh doesn't go along with that view and believes Might Bite was simply racing within his comfort zone in dispatching far inferior rivals.

He said: "Might Bite goes to the last in a King George and he jumps it like Milton in a showjumping class - he gave it three foot. I mean, how much does he have in the tank? I don't know where the bottom of Might Bite is.

"He could be one of the greatest horses of all time as he always seems to have so much left in the tank by the time the race is over."

Yet to decide

Walsh will be aiming to add to his 56 festival winners next week but has yet to decide who he will ride in the Friday feature.

Mulling over Willie Mullins' Gold Cup contenders, Djakadam, Bachasson, Total Recall and Killultagh Vic, he said: "Total Recall is the improver but can he improve enough to win a Gold Cup? I don't know.

"Killultagh Vic looked as though he was going to win the Irish Gold Cup but he fell at the last and he lacks experience, while Bachasson is in there as well.

"That leaves Djakadam, who I've always felt would win a Gold Cup. If I desert him, having ridden him in the last three renewals of the race, he'll surely go and bite me in the ass and win it this year. He'll be a hard horse to overlook."

Walsh also warned it would be unwise to discount Sizing John, last year's winner.

"The forgotten horse is Sizing John. He's had one bad run this season in the Leopardstown Christmas Chase but he could be forgiven for that," he said.

"He was brilliant last season, winning the Gold Cup, and when he went to Punchestown it looked as though the edge had been knocked off him a little bit but he still managed to grind out the result. He ran so badly at Christmas that it just couldn't be true."

He concluded: "I think this year's Gold Cup will be run at a ferocious gallop. They'll be strung out over Cleeve Hill and they'll be finishing in intervals, which could set it up for something coming from off the pace, like a Lord Windermere or something.

"I think, though, whatever gets by the top two in the betting - Sizing John and Might Bite - will win.