Ballyburn pictured with Ronnie Bartlett (left) and Paul Townend

Cheltenham Festival update: Spotlight on Ballyburn

By Matt Brocklebank

Horse Racing

Mon February 05, 2024 · 10M ago

Matt Brocklebank is looking to temper enthusiasm for Ballyburn after he become a short-priced favourite for both the Sky Bet Supreme and the Baring Bingham at Cheltenham.

What’s the latest development?

The Tattersalls Ireland 50th Derby Sale Novice Hurdle – so often the best novice hurdle run anywhere prior to the Cheltenham Festival in March – was won by the Willie Mullins-trained Ballyburn.

A son of Flemensfirth owned by Ronnie Bartlett and David Manasseh, he was taking the step up to Grade 1 level for the first time in his life. Having widely been considered among the best of Mullins’ bumper horses last season, he missed Cheltenham before winning the JP & M Doyle Flat Race at the Punchestown Festival at the end of April.

His hurdling campaign this term got off to a relatively inauspicious start, Ballyburn turned over at odds of 10/11 behind Firefox in a Fairyhouse maiden on December 2, before setting the record straight in no uncertain terms with a 25-length demolition job over Leopardstown’s two and a half miles at the end of the Christmas Festival.

The DRF rise in class, together with a drop back to two miles, was the question mark for Paul Townend’s mount on Sunday and – taken at face value anyway - he had all the answers, taking full advantage of the omission of the final flight due to low sun, which helped turn the race into more of a test of stamina at the trip than might usually have been the case.

Ballyburn sat second early on, just off rank outsider Boher Road, before inheriting the lead midway down the back straight. Eventual runner-up Slade Steel kept the favourite company on the sharp end, but Townend was essentially able to dictate at his own leisure and, in trademark fashion, stepped on the gas immediately on touching down after the usual second-last (last on this occasion) before quickening again after slaloming around the omitted obstacle.

He took a bit of pulling up after the line and his winning margin of seven lengths may not have been a full reflection of his superiority on the day.

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What do the markets say?

Impressive – in a word.

Already right up near the top of the markets for both the Sky Bet Supreme and the Baring Bingham before the DRF, Ballyburn is now as short as 5/4 for the Festival opener with the sponsors (NRNB) and 2/1 with Ladbrokes and Coral who don’t yet offer the non-runner concession.

In the Baring Bingham – the race for which he really shortened up after winning his maiden hurdle at the intermediate trip – he is 11/10 with Paddy Power (NRNB) and a best-priced 3/1 (also Coral, Ladbrokes) without the NRNB safety-net.

Henry De Bromhead's Slade Steel was cut to a general 5/1 for the Baring Bingham on the back of his creditable effort in defeat, while William Hill saw the need to trim Ballyburn’s stablemate Mystical Power to 11/4 (NRNB), with the latter nudged out to as big as 5/1 with Betfair for the Sky Bet Supreme.

What are the Festival options?

Willie Mullins wasn’t giving anything away in his post-race interviews and you can understand why given he’ll now have to have some serious conversations with connections of Mystical Power, who also have the Nicky Henderson-trained Jeriko Du Reponet in the mix for both races, and countless others don’t forget.

Ballyburn’s owners jesting on Racing TV that they might run him in the Albert Bartlett – a Festival race for which the horse is not entered – doesn’t exactly help but it’s pretty clear that the word from the camp was to keep schtum regarding future targets before letting the dust settle.

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What’s the current conclusion?

I wasn’t completely blown away by Mystical Power when he came under the spotlight after winning the Sky Bet Moscow Flyer and, again, I’m inclined to try and reel in the hysteria a little bit in light of Sunday’s events.

Yes, Ballyburn won the Leopardstown race by a wider margin than Vautour in 2014, Klassical Dream in 2019 and Appreciate It in 2021, and all three of those Mullins monsters went on to win the Sky Bet Supreme a few weeks later, but are this bunch of novices up to that much?

The situation regarding the high-profile sale has unfortunately taken Caldwell Potter out of the picture for the time being (he's trading around 80.0 on the Betfair Exchange for the Supreme), while Edward O'Grady has opted to sit and wait for a couple of weeks to give No Flies On Him his Cheltenham prep at Punchestown.

There was a brief moment during Sunday's race that I was starting to regret not backing Absurde at huge prices when he made rapid ground to move into third on the run to the final bend, while Ballyburn’s main market rival Farren Glory – who jumped out to his right and was ultimately tailed off – clearly hasn’t run his race.

Time will tell if this was the red-hot race it was billed to be, but I’m not completely convinced.

The omission of the final hurdle also looked to help exaggerate the extent to which Ballburn was able to pull clear in the closing stages and the overriding impression is that he’s now far too skinny to be contemplating an antepost bet.

As for his likely next target – where do you park your Ferrari?

Ballyburn, who is proven on all racing surfaces from good/yielding to soft/heavy, looks to be the ace from Closutton in this particular division and Mullins has often liked to send his number one out to bat and get the team off to the best possible start in the Supreme.

He didn’t do that last year, though, with Impaire Et Passe – his 2023 Moscow Flyer winner – held back for the Baring Bingham, and the same looked to be true when Sir Gerhard skipped a potential clash with Constitution Hill before winning the Wednesday race in 2022.

I suppose it’s easier to place them when you're effectively in command of their nearest rivals as well, but no matter the race, Ballyburn has fully underlined the fact he’s going to be sent off favourite at the Festival. Whether he’ll have everything go his way quite to the same degree there is another matter entirely.

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