Cheltenham Races

Paul Nicholls became leading trainer at the Festival for the fourth year running, and the sixth time in all, in 2009. In fact, the former jump jockey surpassed his previous efforts by saddling a total of five winners, namely Master Minded in the Seasons Holidays Queen Mother Champion Chase, Chapoturgeon in the Jewson Novices’ Handicap […]

The Cheltenham Festival in 2008 was unusual insofar as the second day was cancelled due to high winds, forcing the Queen Mother Champion Chase to be run on the Thursday, along with the World Hurdle and eight other races. Friday, too, featured a nine-race card but, results-wise, the Festival wasn’t entirely unpredictable. Paul Nicholls, leading […]

Robert ‘Chocolate’ Thornton proved the jockey to follow at the Festival in 2007. His four winners – My Way De Solzen in the Irish Independent Arkle Chase, Voy Por Ustedes in the Queen Mother Champion Chase, Katchit in the JCB Triumph Hurdle and Andreas in the Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Chase – were sufficient to […]

Ruby Walsh topped and tailed the week with a winner, making up fully 7 lengths on the run-in to win the opening Anglo Irish Bank Supreme Novices’ Hurdle on Noland, but having to work much less hard on Desert Quest, who drew clear for an impressive 2½-length win in the closing Vincent O’Brien County Hurdle. […]

The National Hunt Festival at Cheltenham had been a three-day spectacle since 1923 but, in 2005, was extended from three to four days. Four new races – namely, the Fred Winter Juvenile Novices’ Handicap Hurdle, the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase, the Festival Trophy, or Ryanair Chase and the Spa Novices’ Hurdle, or Albert Bartlett Novices’ […]

With all due respect to Paul Webber’s charge, Time For Rupert, who ran in the Ladbrokes World Hurdle, the RSA Chase and the Cheltenham Gold Cup in his time, the titular Rupert, in this case, is Rupert ‘Ruby’ Walsh. In his second full season as stable jockey to Paul Nicholls – who was to become […]