Today is the opening day of the Cheltenham National Hunt Festival, a special day in the calendar for racing fans and anyone with a broad interest in Irish Sport.
In a previous life, I was the Sponsorship Director of the Tote, at the time sponsor of the Cheltenham Gold Cup and it is an event that has held me in thrall since watching Dawn Run win the same race more than 30 years ago.
An early memory is working there in the late 1990s and chatting to Willie Mullins, his wife Jacqui, and young son Patrick in the winners’ enclosure after the light had faded and the crowds dispersed. Today Patrick bids to win his third different amateur race at the Festival and Willie is closing in on a magical century having trained an incredible 88 winners down the years, ten of them alone in 2022.
Five of those winners last year came on Gold Cup Day, the closing day of the festival and he arrives back today with a strong hand to pick up where he left off.
“It was a fantastic week, but we had five winners over the first three days which really was just OK,” he said on the eve of the meeting.
“It’s amazing though – to get one winner on the board is always fantastic for any trainer and when we go there every year, we’re hoping to get our name on the board.”
“When you have a day like that Friday it all sort of goes by in a flash, as you can’t believe what’s happening. It’s a rollercoaster as you go from the parade ring to the winner’s enclosure and then chatting to the media. You’re just hoping that someone is saddling the next runners – and the same goes on.”
“For it to happen three times in a row at the start of Gold Cup Day was unbelievable, and I’ve got a great team. They keep things ticking along by weighing out the jockeys and saddling the horses and things like that.”
“It may sound simple, but when you’ve got so many runners on a big day like that with everything going on, it’s very easy to slip up. It’s huge for me to have a team like that doing what they do at Cheltenham, and I let them get on with the show and try not to interfere.”
This week he starts with four runners in the opening Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, headed by Facile Vega, winner of the Weatherby’s Champion Bumper last year.
It is a day when State Man will bid to upset hot favourite Constitution Hill in the Champion Hurdle, off at 3-30, and after which Honeysuckle will bid to crown a marvelous career with one last surge up the hill in the Mares Hurdle.
If you’ve never been, put a day at the festival on your bucket list and if you haven’t made it over this year, treat yourself by setting aside a couple of hours this afternoon and watch the action unfold with Virgin media.
The horse we will be cheering for are:
1-30 Marine Nationale
2-10 Saint Roi
2-50 Nassalam
3-30 Constitution Hill
4-10 Honeysuckle
4-50 Perseus Way
5-30 Gaillard de Mesnil
Three of them are trained by Willie Mullins and the last is ridden by Patrick. That would be special, though please bear in mind that nothing is certain in racing and that you should never bet more than is fun to do so.
