Cheltenham Festival day 3 guide: Tomorrow's tips, races, results, weather and more
The four-day Cheltenham Festival continues at pace tomorrow with plenty to keep the punters interested.
The meeting got under way on Tuesday and continues tomorrow (Thursday, March 14), with Willie Mullins already having a week to remember, bringing up his 100th Festival winner on Wednesday. The first of seven races tomorrow is off at 1.30pm. Scroll down for a full schedule.
The first five races of each day of the meeting will be broadcast live free-to-air on ITV1 and on streaming via ITVX. For coverage of the entire card, including the final two races of each day, Racing TV is the place to go.
1.30: Turners Novices’ Chase (Grade 1)
Best bet: Facile Vega
2.10: Pertemps Network Final Handicap Hurdle (Premier Handicap)
Best bet: Gaoth Chuil
2.50: Ryanair Chase (Grade 1)
Best bet: Ahoy Senor
3.30: Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle (Grade 1)
Best bet: Teahupoo
4.10: TrustATrader Plate Handicap Chase (Premier Handicap)
Best bet: Theatre Man
4.50: Ryanair Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle (Grade 2)
Best bet: Brighterdayahead
5.30: Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup Amateur Jockeys’ Handicap Chase
Best bet: Inothewayurthinkin
The day will start dry but there will be showers in the Cheltenham area by the afternoon. The temperature is expected to be between 10 and 14C. Visibility is expected to be good.
The latest going report for this afternoon is soft, heavy (in places) on the New Course.
Teahupoo (Stayers’ Hurdle, 3.30): A light campaign so far this season can pay handsomely here for connections of Teahupoo, who comes forward clear on official ratings and, enticingly, with the potential to rate higher still. He remains an unexposed hurdler and looks to have taken aim at this race ever since finishing an excellent 3 rd in last year’s renewal. Jack Kennedy enjoys a perfect record aboard the horse and, in a race lacking considerable depth, Teahupoo is strongly fancied to take all the beating in this year’s Stayers’ Hurdle.
Ahoy Senor (Ryanair Chase, 2.50): This race looks wide open, with the rain looking to have dented the chances of long-time favourite Banbridge. Envoi Allen, Stage Star and Capodanno all have serious chances but at the prices Ahoy Senor should be backed. This is the time of year when he tends to come into his own and he will benefit from the return to a left-handed track, after a good run at Ascot last month. Expect Derek Fox to bounce him out in front and make it a stern test of stamina over two and a half miles. Should his jumping hold up, he should be bang there with a chance at the bottom of the hill.
By Marcus Armytage, at Cheltenham
Is Thursday the day when the British finally come good at this year’s Cheltenham Festival? You could argue they need not so much a change of luck but a change of horses but the home-trained Crambo has an excellent chance of keeping the Paddy Power Stayers Hurdle at home and likewise Ga Law with the Ryanair Chase.
The staying hurdle division is crying out for a new star and Crambo, an improving seven-year-old who just does the bare minimum in his races, can finally wave off the old guard of Dashel Drasher, Paisley Park, last year’s surprise winner Sire Du Berlais and the previous winner Flooring Porter to the less strenuous pastime of Retraining of Racehorses classes.
Fergal O’Brien, one of the course’s most local trainers, has yet to celebrate a Festival winner. Besides the Long Walk Hurdle winner Crambo, who has been freshened up since his Ascot run at Christmas, he also has the useful unbeaten Dysart Enos in Thursday’s mare’s race, probably the best two chances he has ever had at the meeting and he will be hoping for some return.
Of course it is worth noting the Willie Mullins runners Asterion Forlonges and Sir Gerhard, while his nephew Emme’s 2022 Grand National winner Noble Yeats is bidding to give owner Robert Waley-Cohen a second win in the race after Rustle in 1989. Do not rule any of them out.
Jamie Snowden has the in-form Cheltenham specialist Ga Law for the Ryanair Chase. The trainer says the horse is flying at home and could be the one to break the stranglehold of short-priced winners at this meeting.
“He’s coming into the race in much better form than when he was fifth last year and only beaten nine and a half lengths,” explained Snowden. “If he jumps better than he did last year two, it’ll put right there.”
Pick of the Irish looks like another Mullins-trained runner Capodanno, winner of the Cotswold Chase last time, although Joseph O’Brtien’s Banbridge and Henry de Bromhead’s Envoi Allen will all have their supporters.
Grey Dawning, a very impressive winner at Warwick last time, should go well for the Skelton brothers in the Turners while Gavin Cromwell’s top weight Inothewayurthinkin looks like he has been laid out for the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Chase for amateur riders. Having Derek O’Conner, winner of Tuesday’s National Hunt Chase on Corbett’s Cross, is not a negative.
My morning routine this week has been to start my day riding out for Gordon Elliott and on Wednesday I sat on Riaan, a charming seven-year-old chaser, for Gordon Elliott. He is a 20-1 shot for the TrustATrader Plate Handicap Chase.
My ride on Monday and Tuesday, The Goffer, ran fifth in the Ultima but did not quite get home in the mud. He had a slight air of having seen it all about him having been here before but, in contrast, the whole way down the chute to the exercise area in the middle of the course, Riann’s eyes were on stalks surveying the dustcarts with orange flashing lights and people readying the course for the day.
You did not need to be Dr Dolittle to know that this was his first visit to Cheltenham but he was a beautiful ride and when we hopped off to give them a pick of grass, his focus flicked between the distant stands and the 100 or so horses out and about around him. His character won me over and good luck to him.
This could be the day for Elliott though. Teahupoo, who will relish the conditions in the Stayers Hurdle, has a massive chance as has the stable banker is Brighterdaysahead in the Ryanair Mares’ Novice Hurdle.
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