Tuesday of the Cheltenham Festival is the most anticipated day in the jumps racing calendar, with months of preparation and conjecture finally coming to a head.
The day’s big race, the Champion Hurdle, has lost a key entry in last year’s winner, Constitution Hill, but there are still plenty of stars ready to light up the meeting’s opening day.
When is the first day of the Cheltenham Festival?
The meeting starts today, Tuesday, March 12. The first of seven races will be held at 13.30. Scroll down for the full schedule.
How can I watch the Cheltenham Festival?
The first five races of each day of the meeting will be broadcast free-to-air on ITV1 and live on ITVX. For coverage of the entire card, including each day’s final two races, Racing TV is the place to go.
What races are on day 1 of the Cheltenham Festival?
1.30: Sky Bet Supreme Novice Hurdle (Class 1)
Marlborough’s tip: Mystical Power
2.10: Arkle Challenge Trophy Novice Tracking (Class 1)
Marlborough’s tip: Il Etait Temps
2.50: Ultima Handicap Tracker (Premier Handicap)
Marlborough’s tip: stumptown
3.30: Unibet Champion Hurdle Challenge Cup (Class 1)
Marlborough’s tip: Person of govement
4.10: Close Siblings Mares Disability (1st Class)
Marlborough’s tip: lossiemouth
4.50: Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle (Premier Handicap)
Marlborough’s tip: Batman Giraç
5.30: National Hunt Competition Cup Amateur Jockeys’ Novices’ Track (2nd Class)
Marlborough’s tip: Corbetts Cross
Cheltenham Festival day 1 tips
Marcus Armytage’s best bet
Mr. Vango (National Game Watch, 5.30): He won the Devon National by 60 lengths on his last start and was absolutely on track. If there are any cracks in the stamina of good Irish horses he will reveal them. His coach died last week; It’s written in the stars.
Charlie Brooks’ best bet
Mr. Vango (National Game Watch, 5.30): Mr. Vango is today’s best value. The eight-year-old horse was the last winner to be officially trained by Gold Cup-winning trainer Mark Bradstock before he passed away last week. He certainly got home on heavy ground at Exeter a few weeks ago so any rain and divine help would be positive. Mr. Vango is a classic Bradstock horse. He didn’t compete excessively and was punching well above his weight.
Telegraph Sport’s best bet
Slade Steel (Superior Novice Hurdle, 1.30): The opening two races of the meeting are wide open and there are attractive betting offers with the big names not leading either market. Welsh Warrior looks attractive in the Arkle but Slade Steel looks like a tasty price for the opening race of the meeting, the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.
He was only beaten twice in regulation; He was beaten in both by Ballyburn, who were hot favorites for the Gallagher Novices’ Hurdle on Wednesday. He was seven lengths behind Ballyburn at Leopardstown last month and while the others have questions to answer, that may be good enough form to win the race.
At around 7/1, it’s an excellent bet either way to start the meeting.
What is the weather forecast?
There is a chance of a few showers on the opening day of the meeting, but these should be light and intermittent. The temperature will rise to a maximum of 12 degrees.
The course of the Old Track (the track used on day one) was rated as soft.
Mr. Vango could be the winner with a little help from divine intervention
By Marcus Armytage
Few sports make as much of a fate or a fairy tale as horse racing, and beyond all those things that can be analysed, such as a horse’s form, its rating, its propensity for certain conditions and courses, there is something that cannot be judged in the same way; Divine intervention (if it really is) is regularly an unstoppable force on the outcomes of races.
There would be no more poignant winner on the first day of this year’s Festival, although victorious Willie Mullins is keen to win Tuesday’s National Hunt Chase, held in memory of family matriarch Maureen Mullins, who died in February. Mr Vango’s victory was to be further enhanced the day before the private funeral of his trainer Mark Bradstock. Is it written in the stars?
With his wife Sara an integral part of the partnership, Bradstock, 66, has never had more than a dozen horses in the yard but he has never been short of a good horse, whether it is first Festival winner King Harald or Hennessy winner Carruthers. 2015 Gold Cup winner Coneygree, Bet365 Gold Cup winner Step Back and maybe now Mr Vango.
He is everything you would expect from a Bradstock horse patiently brought along. Two years ago he was ‘pinned’ out of the sights of much bigger trainers for £30,000 after winning his English debut by 25 lengths from point to point, and on his last start he gave the ailing trainer his last win and a point. the tonic that no oncologist can afford; He comes home by 60 furlongs at the Devon National in Exeter.
You can either take the view, like the punters, that the Exeter race has fallen apart, or you can take the opposite view that it is he who separates his relentless front-running from the long-distance chase.
Mullins pair Corbetts Cross and Embassy Gardens, who finished first and second in the stakes, are both fitted with hoods for the first time, a growing trend for Closutton runners, suggesting they may both need to switch off to cover the three-and-a-half mile distance on Tuesday. And they will have to stay every meter as Mr. Vango makes this an endurance test.
The latest example of an otherworldly result came when ill-fated point-to-point rider Keagan Kirkby’s favorite horse, Highland Hunter, won at Newbury just days before leading the rider’s funeral procession in the west country. He enters the Ultima Handicap Chase but with a 5lb penalty for this win he will need serious help up top and some lengthening from Kirkby.
However, if it’s friends who weren’t there we’re talking about, then we have to mention Constitution Hill, who has already graced the poster advertising next year’s Festival, immediately following the winning post, who has been excused from defending his Unibet Champion Hurdle title on a sick note.
Will the action be worse without the best jumper on the planet? To some extent, of course, but I doubt Tuesday’s tickets were sent back for refund for that reason, and once the winner’s name is on the honor roll, presumably last year’s runner-up State Man, history may record the horses he beat. but does not list horses that did not show up.
The timing of what we might call a chest infection is unfortunate, but his trainer Nicky Henderson is a man with an outstanding record in the Champion Hurdle and Iberico Lord, an afterthought entry, could win it for the 10th time.
His horses were under a cloud, as were Constitution Hill and, on Monday, Cleeve Hill, the backdrop to the next four days of fun, but for now at least, we have to trust that they won’t be here. Their trainers and vets didn’t think they were in good shape.
This race could suit the fast-improving six-year-old who has stepped up from handicaps to championship. He would not be the first horse to win the Betfair Hurdle on his way to winning the Champion Hurdle.
This week’s main topic of conversation will be the dominance of the Irish, or more specifically, the Irishman Willie Mullins. He saddles almost half of the favorites.
If you’re looking for signs of the way forward, I recommend picking up Cillian Murphy’s Oscar ahead of Ireland’s last-minute capitulation to England at Twickenham on Saturday. Britain will not be left without a winner, but it is hard to see the home side lifting the Prestbury Cup this year.
Mullins is at odds with two bettors with 10 (his record in 2022) or more winners and 16-1 with five or fewer winners. Six is about equal to ten and, now aged 94, his six this year would make him the first man to have a century of winners at the Festival. We’ll give you that Willie, but don’t go win your mother’s race this year.
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