The first major entries were revealed this week for the upcoming Cheltenham Festival. The meeting takes place between March 11th and 14th and the nominations are now in for the Grade One chases.
The Gold Cup, Ryanair Chase and Queen Mother Champion Chase are all included but entries have been met with the usual pessimistic quotes.
The British challenge for the Gold Cup is at a new low. Just 19 possible runners have been declared, only FOUR of those being trained in Britain. The shortest priced of those is 25/1 shot Grey Dawning.
This Is Racing, Not International Football
Some commentators are still saying that “the home team will bounce back”. Mind you, that sort of sentence is part of the festival’s problem. It’s not a team sport, not in the sense of country versus country, anyway.
The fact is that the most powerful owners are at this point mostly based in Ireland. They buy horses, then they send them to trainers in Ireland to be trained. Simple. Mullins and co are outstanding, but that’s not to say that with the same machinery Nicholls, Skelton and the likes couldn’t do the same job.
We should just take pleasure in watching the best jumps horses compete, regardless of who trains them. As long they do it properly, I don’t care what their postcode is.
We really do need to stop propagating this Britain v Ireland thing. It’s poisonous. Leave that to the parochial halfwits who will continue their nationalist propaganda on X and Facebook. It certainly shouldn’t be the job of journalists or ITV.
Anyway, enough of that. We’ll see British trainers dominating the top British jumps festival by and by. Until that day comes, these are the initial entries for the big Grade One chases at Cheltenham in March along with how ante-post betting has been affected.
Queen Mother Champion Chase – Wednesday, March 12
26 runners have been declared in all for the Champion Chase on the Old Course on day two of the Cheltenham Festival. These are the top ten in the betting as things stand:
| Odds | Horse | Trainer |
|---|---|---|
| 9/4 | Jonbon | Nicky Henderson |
| 9/2 | Gaelic Warrior | Willie Mullins |
| 5/1 | Energumene | Willie Mullins |
| 12/1 | El Fabiolo | Willie Mullins |
| 16/1 | Il Est Francais | Noel George & Amanda Zetterholm |
| 20/1 | Marine Nationale | Barry Connell |
| 25/1 | Solness | Jospeh O’Brien |
| 33/1 | Djelo | Venetia Williams |
| 40/1 | Quilixios | Henry de Bromhead |
| 50/1 | Found A Fifty | Gordon Elliott |
Naturally there’s no major movement just yet, though we should note that Jonbon is a general 2/1 and is as short as 15/8 in a place. It seems there is genuine confidence now that he is the real deal and will be hard to beat.
Gaelic Warrior’s 9/2 price is a real standout, in fact he is a general 7/2 chance. That is partly due to his ability, but also to the strength of the Willie Mullins yard. Once declarations are made and jockeys are booked, that price could contract further.
Ryanair Chase – Thursday, March 13
34 are nominated for the Ryanair Chase over 2½ miles on Thursday. Spillane’s Tower went off favourite for the King George on Boxing Day but will not go for the Gold Cup, instead being entered here.
This isn’t seen as an easy task for him though with others ahead of him in the betting. These are the current top ten:
| Odds | Horse | Trainer |
|---|---|---|
| 4/1 | Fact To File | Willie Mullins |
| 5/1 | Banbridge | Joseph O’Brien |
| 7/1 | Gaelic Warrior | Willie Mullins |
| 8/1 | El Fabiolo | Willie Mullins |
| 8/1 | Spillane’s Tower | James Joseph Mangan |
| 10/1 | Il Est Francais | Noel George & Amanda Zetterholm |
| 12/1 | Energumene | Willie Mullins |
| 14/1 | Grey Dawning | Dan Skelton |
| 16/1 | Djelo | Venetia Williams |
| 25/1 | Envoi Allen | Henry de Bromhead |
Being that this race attracts some who may yet go for the Champion Chase over two miles, and those who may be aimed at the Gold Cup, it has a bigger entry. It also has a much more wide-open market.
Some of these will be aimed at one championship race or another, eventually leaving something as a strong favourite. All we can do for the time being is watch the market and attempt to second-guess what the trainers will do.
If you’re betting ante-post on this, get a Non-Runner, No Bet deal.
Cheltenham Gold Cup – Friday, March 14
Forget the Britain v Ireland debate. The really disappointing thing is that there are only 19 runners entered for the Gold Cup at this stage. Not all of those will run either, of course.
Is it a lack of ambition or a lack of talent? As good as dual winner Galopin Des Champs is, many don’t put him in the Best Mate or the Kauto Star category and yet he looks genuinely likely to finish this meeting as a rare triple Gold Cup winner.
There is a distinct lack of talent going up against him, unfortunately. Anyway, these are the top ten best prices in the 2025 Gold Cup:
| Odds | Horse | Trainer |
|---|---|---|
| 11/10 | Galopin Des Champs | Willie Mullins |
| 4/1 | Fact To File | Willie Mullins |
| 14/1 | Gerri Colombe | Gordon Elliott |
| 16/1 | Banbridge | Joseph O’Brien |
| 20/1 | Monty’s Star | Henry de Bromhead |
| 25/1 | Grey Dawning | Dan Skelton |
| 33/1 | Corbetts Cross | Emmet Mullins |
| 33/1 | Embassy Gardens | Willie Mullins |
| 33/1 | Il Est Francais | Noel George & Amanda Zetterholm |
| 33/1 | L’Homme Presse | Venetia Williams |
Galopin Des Champs looks as good as ever and will take all the beating. The scary thing is that he may frighten a number of these off.
This will be all about ambition. King George 1-2 Banbridge and Il Est Francais may yet go to the Ryanair Chase but really should be challenging for this.
A lot depends on what Willie Mullins decides to do with his massive string in the run-up to the final declarations.