Rory Delargy kicks off our antepost look ahead to the 2025 Cheltenham Festival with the Punting Pointers view on the Ryanair Chase.
Cheltenham Festival Antepost Tips
1pt win Spillane’s Tower in Ryanair Chase at 6/1 (General)
The Festival Trophy, or the Ryanair as it’s more commonly known, can be a difficult race for ante-post betting as despite its Grade 1 status and the fact that it attracts the highest quality entries, many of those engaged at this stage also hold entries for the Champion Chase, the Gold Cup, or both, and those races still have more traditional cachet. As a result, it’s often easy to find – to paraphrase the late, great Eric Morecambe – all the right horses, but not necessarily in the right races.
On the other hand, it’s possible to argue that horses that have the ability to win the Ryanair without the distraction of other entries at Cheltenham in March have an advantage in terms of long-range value and that is certainly the case with SPILLANE’S TOWER, who is entered only in the Ryanair and has that race has his main target with trainer Jimmy Mangan opining that he’s young enough to step up next season.
The seven-year-old may well be a Gold Cup contender in a year’s time, but my view is that Mangan has taken the correct decision to opt for the intermediate championship this time round, and he is a serious player in the Ryanair based not only of his defeat of Monty’s Star in the Grade 1 Champion Novice Chase at Punchestown (which followed another top-level success at Fairyhouse over 2½m), but also his excellent second to Fact To File in the John Durkan, where he finished in front of Galopin des Champs.
Spillane’s Tower couldn’t match that effort in the King George, where he was left in a poor position after being hampered at the first fence and simply failed to find his usual rhythm at a track where rhythm with a capital ‘R’ is key.
I’m more than happy to give him a pass for that, and the Durkan form could hardly have worked out better, with Galopin des Champs and Fact To File dominating the Savills Chase at Leopardstown.
The trio who dominated the Durkan could all clash again in the Irish Gold Cup but Spillane’s Tower is much the most interesting with this race in mind despite Fact To File being a 6/4 shot in a place (NRNB) and no bigger than 4/1 for the Ryanair, whereas the selection is available at 7/1 in a place or two and 6/1 generally.
I won’t even try to argue that Spillane’s Tower is the better of the pair, but he’s priced much more generously and there are obvious problems with backing Fact To File for this, notably that should he run really well or even win at the DRF, he will surely go to the Gold Cup. His participation in the Ryanair essentially depends on him getting beaten so comprehensively by Galopin des Champ that there is no point renewing rivalry in March, and anyone who backs a 6/4 shot ante-post on the basis that it won’t run well on its next outing needs to get their head felt, to coin a phrase.
WATCH: Spillane's Tower pushes Fact To File close in the John Durkan
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Banbridge has the beating of Spillane’s Tower on Kempton form and is a dual Cheltenham winner for all he disappointed in last year’s Ryanair, which was galling for us as we put him up ante-post at 20/1. We both like Banbridge, but he’s less appealing at much shorter odds this year as he has entries in the Champion Chase and the Gold Cup and remains dependent on good or yielding ground to show his best, and the ground is likely to be a deciding factor in where he goes.
Il Est Francais looked like a drop in trip would suit at Kempton, but he’s a horse with a history of bleeding, and I think even the 2m5f of the Ryanair would place enough strain on him to render him unattractive in this race, with the Champion Chase arguably a more enticing gamble for connections.
Grey Dawning is a horse David (Massey) wants to keep on side, and merits a proper mention as a result; he looked as good as ever when second to Royale Pagaille in the Betfair Chase, perhaps finding his stamina stretched to the very limits on testing ground, but all the same you immediately felt that was as far as he wanted to go, and the demands of the Gold Cup might just be beyond him.
He's tailor-made for this test, however, with both trip and track ideal, and he’s a bigger price than perhaps he ought to be off the back of his disappointing King George effort where he was never going after an early mistake. He’ll bounce back, and no English trainer has been more adept in recent times at readying them for March than Dan Skelton.
Those are the positives, but the negatives are that at the time of writing, Skelton still views him as a Gold Cup candidate and it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which connections abandon that view without his chances taking a knock. The Cotswold Chase would have been my idea of the perfect opportunity to see if the Gold Cup was realistic but running him at Christmas means that race looks unrealistic, and the Ascot Chase may come too late for an about-turn.
Djelo relished the mud when winning the Peterborough Chase turning handstands last time and could prep for Cheltenham in the Fleur Du Lys Chase at Windsor this weekend. He’s capable of better yet but there’s always a danger of over-rating Grade 2 form and he’s been beaten seven lengths or more in three tries in Grade 1 company over fences.
Best of the outsiders could be Jungle Boogie who ran a cracker before failing to stay in last year’s Gold Cup and won easily in the 1964 Chase at Ascot last time despite failing to handle the track. Track and trip will be ideal at Cheltenham, but the fact that he’s not taken much racing over the years means he’s one to back on the day if featuring in the declarations rather than gambling on him ante-post.
Published at 1530 GMT on 13/01/25
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