It’s almost time for the famous Cheltenham roar.
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Cheltenham one-man-show.
Willie Mullins’ stranglehold over the National Hunt game has perhaps never been as pronounced.
The Irish-based trainer will head to Prestbury Park this week with a breath-taking 70-strong team of horses.
With a record-breaking 94 winners to his name, as things stand, he is expected to surpass the century mark by the time this Friday rolls around.
In truth, he could be into the 100s by Thursday morning.
In the first two days alone, little summarises Mullins’ dominance quite like the fact that, at the time of writing, he’s set to saddle ten ante-post favourites in the first two days of racing.
He trains the favourite for three of the four championship races, with Gordon Elliott’s Teahupoo’s short odds in the world hurdle the only exception.
The Prestbury Cup
Perhaps as a consequence of Mullins’ continued success, Ireland’s dominance over England continues at the Olympics of horse racing. In fact, over the last eight years, England have only won the Prestbury Cup once.
With Mullins supported by the likes of Henry de Bromhead and Gordon Elliott, the Irish are expected to have another successful week at the Cotswolds.
The ground
John ‘Shark’ Hanlon’s Gold Cup hopes are pinned on the shoulders of his horse Hewick. They lie in the hands of Wexford jockey Jordan Gainford but they all lie helplessly in the lap of the weather gods. Shark, the Kilkenny trainer, has said in the build-up to the festival that, should the weather go against him on Cheltenham week, ‘the people’s horse,’ will not race.
Hewick, just like Joseph O’Brien’s Banbridge (favourite for Thursday’s Ryanair chase) is a hard ground horse and will not race if the weather is wet, and the ground softens up.
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