El Fabiolo aims to add the Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase to his Grade 1 Ladbrokes Dublin Chase win last month. (Breandán Ó hUallacháin Photo)
By Breandán Ó hUallacháin
Wednesday at the Cheltenham Festival features four Grade 1 races on the seven-race card. With Irish-based trainers winning six of the seven races on day one, the Emerald Isle’s handlers look set to again dominate Wednesday’s proceedings, and may even claim all Grade 1 races on the day.
El Fabiolo versus Jonbon in Champion Chase
The Grade 1 Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase, the highlight of the second day of this year’s Festival, like Tuesday’s Unibet Champion Hurdle, will be without its reigning champion, Energumene, who is sidelined all this season with injury. His stable companion, El Fabiolo, should provide an able substitute for the champion Irish jumps trainer and jockey combination of Willie Mullins and Paul Townend.
The 2022 winner of the Arkle Chase, Edwardstone, will contest the race, but at 10 years of age, is three years older than the race favourite, El Fabiolo. The J.P. McManus-owned Jonbon, formerly a Grade 1-winning hurdler when he defeated El Fabiolo at Aintree, was beaten over fences by El Fabiolo in last year’s Arkle Chase, which is the novices’ equivalent of the Champion Chase. In contests between the two, it currently stands two wins to one in favour of the Irish-trained El Fabiolo. If either of the ‘big two’ fail to perform on the day, Edwardstone and Captain Guinness, whose handler Henry de Bromhead had a winner on day one, will likely claim this Grade 1 event.
Irish ‘banker’ Ballyburn the choice in Gallagher Novices’ Hurdle
The ‘banker’ of the entire Festival for many punters, Ballyburn, runs in the opening Grade 1 Gallagher Novices’ Hurdle. He destroyed his rivals over two and a half miles at Leopardstown’s Christmas Festival, before easily defeating Tuesday’s Grade 1 Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle winner Slade Steel by seven lengths. Originally holding a Cheltenham entry in both the two mile Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and the two miles five furlongs Gallagher Novices’ Hurdle, his trainer Willie Mullins needed to separate his stable stars, hence the decision to choose this race for Ballyburn.
The favourite’s main challenge may come from his stable companion, Ile Atlantique, the mount of the handler’s son, Patrick. The six-year-old was runner-up to another Mullins inmate, Readin Tommy Wrong in a Grade 1 at Naas on his most recent start. With Mullins training five of the eight runners in the Gallagher Novices’ Hurdle, it wouldn’t be inconceivable that Predators Gold could bring up the trifecta for the Closutton handler.
Fact To File chases consecutive Grade 1 victories
The Grade 1 Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase will have another Willie Mullins/Paul Townend favourite in Fact To File. The runner-up in last season’s Champion Bumper at the Cheltenham Festival, the J.P.McManus-owned seven-year-old gelding has looked an assured jumper over fences this season, and has already tasted success at the highest level, when winning the Ladbrokes Novice Chase at the Dublin Racing Festival last month. He was the only runner to complete the race, as Tuesday’s Arkle Chase winner, Gaelic Warrior, unseated his rider at the final fence.
Last seaon’s Grade 1 Albert Bartlett winner at Cheltenham, Stay Away Fay, should provide a strong challenge. Trained by Paul Nicholls in England and ridden by Harry Cobden, the seven-year-old will wear cheekpieces for the first time, something that should help the son of Shantou concentrate.
Only six winning favourites in Weatherbys Bumper
The final Grade 1 race of the day, the Weatherbys Bumper, which is a long distance National Hunt flat race run over two miles, has been dominated by Willie Mullins since his first success in the race with Wither Or Which in 1996. He has since saddled the winner on 12 occasions.
This season he will be represented by nine horses in the 24-runner field, a race Irish-trained horses have won 24 times since the race was introduced to the Cheltenham Festival in 1992.
Mullins’ unbeaten Jasmin De Vaux, who will be ridden by his son, Patrick, will likely be challenged by the three-time winner and fellow French-bred Jalon D’Oudairies, handled by Mullins’ main training rival in Ireland, Gordon Elliott, and owned by Ryanair CEO and owner of Gigginstown House Stud, Michael O’Leary. Another Elliott contender, The Yellow Clay, ran well in fourth when returning from 10 months off the racetrack, and has been noted by many as a serious contender. This race, however, has been a poor race for favourites, with only six winning in 31 renewals.
