Mug's game: Poor forecast on Costa del Cheltenham after stormy opening day
IN A ROUGH STATE: State Man ridden by Paul Townend falls at the last hurdle on day one of the 2025 Cheltenham Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse. Pic: Adam Davy/PA Wire
An increasingly popular place for fans of the Cheltenham festival to be this week, according to an article the other day, is… Benidorm. Not Cheltenham. Benidorm.
Cheltenham has become too big, too expensive, too everything; Benidorm has nice weather, cheap pints, ease of ingress and egress and no issues with parking. In short, no rip-off.
The above is by way of an attempting to find a fresh intro to the column. Can’t keep starting off with minor variations upon how your correspondent has studied the form to within an inch of its life, is locked and loaded and is supremely confident that each day’s betting allowance of €50 will come Friday teatime have been turned into a huge pot of gold for the publican of his choice – sorry, charity of his choice. .
New qualification criteria mean that a number of races here should be more competitive this year. Good. Nobody wants to see odds-on favourites trotting up in small fields. It’s difficult if not impossible for the ordinary punter to make money that way. It’s even more difficult getting a readable betting column out of it.
Still, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, so as an experiment I stick a tenner on the Willie Mullins odds-on treble. Kopek Des Bordes, Majborough and Lossiemouth. It’ll pay 3.66/1 if it comes in, which is scarcely the stuff of punting dreams, and there will certainly be something bloodless and clinical about it. But a winner’s a winner.
A fiver on State Man at 12/1 in the Champion Hurdle on the simple basis of “how can the defending champion be that price?” An each-way Lucky 15 featuring Romeo Coolio and July Flower. A couple of other bits and bobs.
Kopek Des Bordes duly wins the opener for a great and poignant Cork triumph. Romeo Coolio finishes third. It’s a start, or it would be if Majborough didn’t make a mistake four out in the Arkle and an even worse one at the second last which leaves him briefly on his backside before he gets up, regains his balance, runs on gamely and very nearly brings off an improbable victory.
Someone on ITV declares that he was “unlucky”. Nonsense. The obstacles are there to be jumped. National Hunt racing 1.01.
Lossiemouth streaks home in the Mares Hurdle. If (when it comes to betting is there a more pointless word?) Majborough had been even mildly clean at the second last I’d be on the board via the treble. But hang on; up pops Willie to reveal that State Man has been working better at home than Lossiemouth lately. A nod being as good as a wink to a flailing punter, another fiver goes on State Man, this time at 9/1.
At the top of the hill in the big one something extraordinary happens. Constitution Hill – winner in 2023, 10 from 10, the hurdler of a lifetime - overjumps and comes down. It’s up for grabs now, as Brian Moore might have said, and rounding the turn State Man takes up the running and forges clear.
I begin to congratulate myself on my perspicacity. Enda, you old shrewdie! How could the reigning champion have started at such bizarrely long odds indeed? You . Upon which State Man does a Constitution Hill, or for older readers an Annie Power, on it, overjumps and comes down. Ugh.
Fair play to Golden Ace and her connections nonetheless. On an afternoon when Rich Ricci and Michael O’Leary were interviewed by ITV it is good to discover that the festival still has room for people like Lorcan Williams, Jeremy Scott and Ian Gosden. You gotta buy a ticket and they did. You gotta jump the obstacles and she did.
But spare a thought for poor me. Instead of having €100 in the tank I have nothing. Instead of having money to play with for the rest of the week I have none. Romeo Coolio being the only one of the quartet to trouble the judge, the Lucky 15 returns the princely sum of €1.05. I’ll be playing against the wind tomorrow. Incidentally this piece did not come to you from Benidorm. Just in case you were wondering.
• Running total after Day One: €1.05
