State Man winning Grade 1 Chanelle Pharma Irish Champion Hurdle at the Dublin Racing Festival. (Breandán Ó hUallacháin)
By Breandán Ó hUallacháin
The opening day of the 2024 Cheltenham Festival – the world’s premier jumps meeting – will feature a seven-race schedule. Here we take a look at the four Grade 1 contests.
Top trainer and jockey
The main trainer to watch for – not alone on Tuesday, but for the four days of the Festival – is Ireland’s perennial champion jumps trainer, Willie Mullins. The Irish handler is the winning-most trainer in Cheltenham Festival history and is only six victories short of the magical 100 winners figure, having had his first Cheltenham Festival win with Tourist Attraction in the 1994 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.
Mullins’ number one stable jockey, Paul Townend, is the leading current jockey at the Festival, having claimed 28 successes in his career to date. This figure places him fourth on the all-time list, behind fellow Irishmen Ruby Walsh (59 winners), Barry Geraghty (43 winners) and Tony McCoy (31 winners). Based on his excellent book of rides over the four days this year, County Cork-born Townend is expected to move ahead of McCoy in terms of Cheltenham Festival victories.
Mullins goes for eighth win in Supreme Novices’ Hurdle
Willie Mullins will hope to open day one with victory in the Grade 1 Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, a race he has previously won seven time, with Tourist Attraction (1995), Ebaziyan (2007), Champagne Fever (2013), Vautour (2014), Douvan (2015), Klassical Dream (2019) and Appreciate It (2021).
He accounts for 50% of the 12-runner field for the two-mile contest, where the six-year-old Tullyhill, a previous National Hunt flat race winner and recent listed race winner at Punchestown, is viewed as the stable favourite. The mount of Paul Townend, he is likely to face stiff competition from the well-bred Mystical Power, an unbeaten gelded son of former Coolmore flat stallion Galileo and owned by the Cheltenham Festival’s leading owner of all-time, J.P. McManus. Slade Steel, runner-up in a Grade 1 at Leopardstown behind the highly impressive Ballyburn – who runs later in the week and is seen by many as the ‘banker’ of the Festival – shoud pose the greatest challenge to Mullins’ powerful Closutton Stables’ team.
Seven winning favourites in last ten years
The Grade 1 Arkle Novices’ Chase over two miles is the next race of the day. Mullins provides the top-three in the current betting with Gaelic Warrior, Hunters Yarn and Il Etait Temps. Gaelic Warrior finished runner-up at the last two Cheltenham Festivals, admittedly over hurdles, but flopped at the recent Dublin Racing Festival. Interestingly, the stable’s top jockey, Paul Townend, keeps faith with the six-year-old son of Maxios. Seven favourites have won the last ten runnings of this contest, but this year’s renewal doesn’t seem as strong as some of the previous years, so may be open to a surprise winner.
State Man’s chance to becoming Champion
The Unibet Champion Hurdle is the premier race of the day, with just eight runners lining up in the two-mile hurdling championship. Last season’s winner, and this season’s race favouite until last week, Constitution Hill, misses the race due to sickness. State Man, beaten into second last season by the Nicky Henderson-trained champion, now has an opportunity to add the Champion Hurdle to his earlier season Irish Champion Hurdle victory. A multi-Grade 1 winning son of Doctor Dino, State Man has only beeen defeated twice, both times at Cheltenham by Constitution Hill. This race should be all about State Man and it would be a major shock if he were defeated on Tuesday.
Lossiemouth top choice in Mares’ Hurdle
The final Grade 1 of the first day of Cheltenham 2024 is the Close Brothers Mares’ Hurdle, with eleven going to post over two miles and four furlongs. Here again, Willie Mullins is the trainer to follow – he has won the race nine times since 2009. Quevega won an incredible six consecutive runnings of the race for him between 2009 and 2014, thus becoming the first horse to win six times at the Cheltenham Festival.
This year the County Carlow-based trainer saddles four of the nine runners and provides the top-two in the betting market in Lossiemouth and Ashroe Diamond. Lossiemouth was a top-class juvenile last season, winning the Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival before claiming another Grade 1 race at the Punchestown Festival. She began this season with an impressive success at Cheltenham and is the choice of rider Paul Townend, though there may be slight doubts about her ability to stay the distance.
Ashroe Diamond will be ridden by Willie Mullins’ son, Patrick, and the seven-year-old is yet to beaten when contesting mares’ only races. She won a Grade 2 at Doncaster on her most recent start, beating her stable companion, Gala Marceau, who re-opposes again.
The bookmakers are suggesting a Willie Mullins benefit on day one of Cheltenham due to the strength and depth of his team. Racing doesn’t always go to plan, however, and usually springs a few surprises – that’s one of the reasons we are attracted to the sport.
