Cheltenham look-back: Overshadowed moments from Prestbury Park
Jockey Darragh O'Keeffe walks back after being unseated at the last by Quilixios during The BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Steeple Chase. Pic: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
Willie Mullins dominated the Cheltenham Festival once again, while Henry de Bromhead had another week to enjoy, and JP McManus took the honours as leading owner.
Beyond them, there were many great takeaways from the 2025 meeting which may have been overshadowed during a hectic week.
Here are just a few of those.
Cheltenham may not have yielded a winner for Darragh O’Keeffe, but the Cork jockey was on top of his game and oh-so-unlucky not to add to his previous Festival success, which came aboard Maskada in the Grand Annual of 2023.
O’Keeffe had 12 rides at this year’s meeting and finished runner-up on three of them: The Big Westerner, Heart Wood and Anyway.
None of those could be considered particularly unlucky, but the Queen Mother Champion Chase was far from a done deal when his mount, 2021 Triumph Hurdle winner Quilixios, fell at the final fence.
His trainer, Henry de Bromhead, has won the race with Sizing Europe, Special Tiara, Put The Kettle On and Captain Guinness, but this could have been the training performance of his career with a 40-1 chance with plenty to find.
Other than that, O’Keeffe can have no complaints about how his week went, and picking up third place in the Gold Cup, riding the Mouse Morris-trained Gentlemansgame, was another feather in the cap of a young rider continuing to climb the ladder of his profession.
It has been quite the season for Declan Queally’s yard and while stable star Rocky’s Diamond finished just outside the first three in the Stayers’ Hurdle, his fourth-placed finish was a performance which boded well for the future of the horse and the stable.
The Galmoy winner, well placed and well trained, has made significant progress in a short time and is now rated 154. Given his age profile and the way that he stuck to his task in Thursday’s feature, if he remains over hurdles next season, he can be one of the top dogs in the division.
From the yard’s perspective, if it can build on this season’s success, one could easily see it occupying that ground between the top tier and the rest of the trainers, a position Gavin Cromwell held for a few years before making the step up to the elite. From there, who knows how far this Co Waterford operation could go?
Anyway first caught the headlines when landing that almighty gamble almost two years ago at Downpatrick, and last week, off a 49lb higher mark, he produced the performance of his career by finishing runner-up in the Jack Richards Novices’ Handicap Chase.
Off the necessary four runs, all gained in beginners’ chases prior to the turn of the new year, he was brought fresh to the Festival to contest his first handicap and almost hit the headlines once more.
For connections it must have been frustrating to run into a former Grade One-winning hurdler, Caldwell Potter, off which he was getting just 7lbs, but what a thrill and what an achievement by the small yard of Ken Budds to have their horse post such a big performance.
At odds of 125-1, he rewarded his each-way supporters handsomely, though I’m sure that, financially, it still pales in comparison to that day in August 2023.
In light of all that went on around it, the achievement of Jody Townend in winning the Weatherbys Champion Bumper aboard Bambino Fever got a little lost but deserved much better.
This was a terrific achievement as not only did she join her brother, Paul, on the Cheltenham Festival roll of honour, she joined Katie Walsh and Rachael Blackmore as lady riders to have won the race.
For Willie Mullins, it was a remarkable 14th win in 33 runnings of the Champion Bumper, and Townend became the ninth rider to win the race for the Closutton team, after the trainer himself, Richard Dunwoody, Ruby Walsh (3), Charlie Swan, Patrick Mullins (4), Katie Walsh, Paul Townend, and Rachael Blackmore.
Tralee trainer Tom Cooper works with limited numbers but the performance of Shuttle Diplomacy in the Champion Bumper was a great advertisement of the stable’s ability to perform on the biggest stage.
Bidding to emulate former stablemate Total Enjoyment, who won the race in 2004, the five-year-old was having his first run since being well beaten in the Grade One Bumper at Punchestown on May 1.
It was a huge ask of the 66-1 chance, but he produced a career-best effort to run on into third place behind Bambino Fever.
Cooper has sent 29 horses to Cheltenham, though not all for the Festival meeting, and has returned two winners, three seconds, two thirds, and two fourths. Clearly, the stable’s runners are worth serious consideration when Cooper deems them worthy to travel.
The Big Westerner went very close to emulating half-brother Stay Away Fay, who won the Grade One Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle in 2023, but Jasmin De Vaux proved just too tough a nut to crack.
The runner-up didn’t enjoy the best of luck in running around the final bend and had been too keen in the early stages of the race, which means the performance is certainly worth upgrading.
She is a tremendous prospect for the Mariga team, who have an interesting decision between remaining over hurdles, a move which could see her develop into a genuine Stayers’ Hurdle contender, or going over fences, with the Mares’ Chase an obvious target, and perhaps even greater down the line. What a great position to be in to have to mull those options!
