Shortly after 1.20pm on Tuesday, as the dozen runners approach the starting tape for the Supreme Novice Hurdle, a roar will echo from the grandstands and out across the natural amphitheatre which sits under Cleeve Hill, signalling the start of the four-day Cheltenham Festival.
The opening race may be tinged with sadness as it marks the death of talented jockey, Michael O’Sullivan, who burst onto the National Hunt scene when he won this race on Marine Nationale two years ago, but had his life cut cruelly short following a fall at Thurles in February.
Tuesday also marks the 10th anniversary of the moment Annie Power, four lengths clear in the Mares’ Hurdle and with the race all but in the bag, tipped up at the last flight, saving the bookies a £50 million satchel clean-out after accumulators on three short-priced Willie Mullins-trained winning favourites, Douvan, Un De Sceaux and Faugheen, rolled on to their exulted stable companion, the Rich Ricci-owned mare.
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No one is going to get rich backing odds-on shots in individual bets, so a similar situation could, for the first time in a decade, arise again when three short-priced favourites, Kopek Des Bordes, Majborough and Lossiemouth look to dominate the three Grade Ones before Constitution Hill, the banker of the week, attempts to regain his Unibet Champion Hurdle title.
Currently, an accumulator on all four amounts to roughly a 15/2 shot and the bookies will look to day one with trepidation and possible industry liabilities of £80 million, according to Ed Nicholson, head of Unibet, sponsor not only of the Champion Hurdle but of Nicky Henderson’s yard, from where Constitution Hill hails.
“I have a sense of deja vu,” Nicholson said yesterday, adding that the appetite for accumulators on the first day of the Festival has grown appreciably since 2015. “For those of us here 10 years ago we might need a strong ‘constitution’ at 4pm on Tuesday.”
Even allowing for the bookmaking publicity fraternity to think of a number and double it, my own feeling is that there are enough admittedly small chinks in the armour of the first three favourites for one or more of them to be beaten before the laid-back Constitution Hill strolls into the paddock.
Supreme favourite Kopek Des Bordes is still very raw. He is strong and has been fitted with a first-time hood to help Paul Townend, but Willie Mullins believes he is a galloper, so everything else should favour this massive new talent.
In the Arkle, Majborough’s jumping has left something to be desired in the past, but having come from France he will have been schooled extensively before he ever got to Mullins and, apart from his own jumping, he has the Sir Alex Ferguson part-owned L’Eau Du Sud to contend with.
Lossiemouth has not enjoyed much luck this season and, after being put in her place by Constitution Hill at Christmas, she had an awful fall at Leopardstown in February which, if it left no physical hangover, may have left its mark mentally, which I believe opens it up for Joyeuse.
Constitution Hill is the best Champion Hurdler I have seen for perhaps a generation and, providing he does not do an Annie Power – he tried that here in January – or a Devon Loch, he looks invincible.
Liverpool-born Matty Gill, who rides him out at Henderson’s, says he has not seen him feel or look better. “It’s just a case of letting the horse do the talking and hopefully it will pan out the way it should,” Gill says.
Michael O’Leary’s Gigginstown outfit is best known for its staying chasers, not high-class two-mile hurdlers but Brighterdaysahead has been beaten only once – by another of today’s rivals Golden Ace in last year’s Mares’ Hurdle – and it is a sporting gesture to pitch her in the Champion rather than going back and trying to go one better among her own sex.
She gets a 7lb allowance by virtue of being female, which might even it up a bit, and she looked a picture in Gordon Elliott’s string out on the course on Sunday. But I am not sure she will have the tactical pace to outgun Constitution Hill, who comprehensively beat last year’s winner State Man two years ago.
At 40-1, Golden Ace is interesting and maybe one for the forecast with the favourite. Her handlers tried stretching her out over 2½ miles and twice she bumped into Lucky Place. By the time the Stayers’ Hurdle is run on Thursday, that form might look pretty smart, but two miles is her distance and her trainer, Exmoor-based Jeremy Scott, has had an indifferent winter until he had three winners on Friday. Throwing her in the Champion may not be Scott’s worst idea, or the shot in the dark that her odds suggest.
Guy Lavender, Cheltenham’s new chief executive, has already made a pre-emptive strike and popped the attendance balloon by announcing that crowds are likely to be down to around 210,000 for the four days. While the Grade Ones on day one have hardly attracted big numbers in the past, the three handicaps make up for it with maximum fields and, from a punting point of view, that is where the value is to be found today.
Katate Dori, named after an Aikido move to grab an opponent’s wrist, should be able to put his rivals in a head lock in the Ultima while Stencil has the right outline to put the Chantilly-based Tom George, 25, in the record books as the youngest trainer in Festival history.
But if Kopek Des Bordes, Majborough, Lossiemouth and Constitution Hill all come in, then there could be a double roar at 4pm; one from the punters, the other from bookmakers’ vehicles leaving the car park.
