Cheltenham Festival 2025: Three things we learned on Tuesday
Golden Ace and Lorcan Williams won the Unibet Champion Hurdle (Grade 1). Pic: Healy Racing
Constitution Hill, the odds-on favourite didn’t win the Champion Hurdle yesterday. He fell four out, apparently going well but it was much too early to conclude how he would have fared in the second half of the race.
Brighterdaysahead or State Man didn’t win the Champion Hurdle yesterday either.
State Man, overjumped at the last and he fell too, causing traffic chaos that impeded Brighterdaysahead, who was well held at the time anyway.
Lossiemouth could have been the champion hurdler yesterday judging by her imperious display when winning the Mare’s Hurdle forty minutes earlier.
But she isn’t, because if you are not in, you can’t win, and she wasn’t. In that is.
Golden Ace, a 25/1 outsider trained by Jeremy Scott and ridden by the unheralded Lorcan Williams, won the Champion Hurdle yesterday.
The mare’s achievement and legacy as the 2025 winner will be laden in ‘what-ifs’ and maybes for as long as she’s around.
Was she a lucky winner? Yes, of course she was. She was lucky that State Man turned over and lucky that Constitutional Hill too went early.
But her luckiest break was having connections that were game enough to keep her in the race when the easier course of action would have been to try to pick up a nice few quid in finishing second in the Mare’s race.
A couple of hours before Constitution Hill and State Man tipped over, Majborough approached the second last fence in the Arkle Chase looking by far the most likely winner despite a display of inconsistent jumping.
Unlike his stablemate, State Man, he got to the other side without falling but his back legs sprawled on landing, jockey Mark Walsh struggled to keep him upright, succeeded, pointed him towards the last where another dodgy jump settled his fate. Despite a game effort up the hill, he could only manage third behind the fast-finishing Jango Baie.
It was about then that the spirit of Al Pacino, or more accurately, Michael Corleone fell over the course.
Every year during the weeks leading up to the Festival, the marketing departments for the big bookmakers get to work, convincing punters that there is a short-priced accumulator which cannot possibly go wrong, and which is bound to leave them bankrupt, hungry and destitute.
Strangely enough, it never seems to work out the way the bookies fear. Some ‘good thing’ always gets beaten and when they do punters sagely vow that this time they will learn from their mistake and will definitely not get sucked in again.
But somehow, they do and end up channelling Pacino - “every time I think I’m out they pull me back in!’ This year the four unbeatable horses were all running on the first day.
Kopeck Des Bordes, Lossiemouth, Majborough and Constitution Hill. The Arkle upset ensured that the tension ended early, and the horror of the Champion Hurdle carnage was lessened a little.
But all this financial and equine misery was placed truly into context before and during the first race.
Respectfully renamed ‘The Michael O’Sullivan Supreme Novice’s Hurdle’ in honour of the recently fallen soldier, Michael’s image was projected on all the course screens at Cheltenham just as the runners arrived at the start.
A spontaneous, respectful round of applause began to drift down from the packed stands and lingered long on the Gloucestershire air with nobody quite sure that they ever wanted to stop clapping.
Eventually they did, the race was off, the famous roar went up and the show, however painfully, went on.
