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Paul Townend has been leading jockey at the Festival three times

2024 Cheltenham Festival: Five leading jockeys

By Timeform

Horse Racing

Tue March 05, 2024 · 10M ago

We profile five riders with some of the best chances at the 2024 Cheltenham Festival.

Paul Townend

Festival wins: 28
Leading jockey: 3 times - 2020, 2022, 2023
Best years: 2020, 2022, 2023 (5 wins)
First Festival winner: What A Charm, 2011 Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle
Gold Cup winners: Al Boum Photo (2019, 2020), Galopin des Champs (2023)

Paul Townend is odds on to be leading jockey at Cheltenham again, a title he has won in three of the last four years, each time with a total of five winners. Following the retirement of Davy Russell and as a result of Townend improving his own score last year, he’s now the most successful jockey at the Festival still riding with a total of 28 winners. All bar two of Townend’s Festival winners – a couple of his earliest ones - have been supplied by Willie Mullins and as number one jockey to the most successful trainer in Cheltenham Festival history, Townend can look forward to another outstanding book of rides this year.

Townend won back-to-back Gold Cups on Al Boum Photo in 2019 and 2020 and will be looking to repeat that feat this year with the 2023 hero Galopin des Champs who has returned to winning form under Townend on his last two starts at Leopardstown in the Savills Chase and, for the second year running, the Irish Gold Cup. While he has yet to win the Champion Hurdle, Townend now has a big chance to put that right on last year’s runner-up State Man folllowing the announcement that reigning champion Constitution Hill won't be able to defend his title.

Another championship event which Townend will be bidding to win again, though, is the Queen Mother Champion Chase, and while he won the last two editions with Energumene he’ll be partnering the odds-on El Fabiolo this time. He won the Sporting Life Arkle on the same horse at last year’s Festival, with the pair’s latest win coming in the Dublin Chase at Leopardstown where El Fabiolo looked as good as ever in taking his unbeaten record over fences to six.

Others who will be favourite to give Townend further Grade 1 success include Ballyburn in one of the novice hurdles (the jockey has won the last two editions of the Baring Bingham) and Lossiemouth, on whom he won the Triumph Hurdle last year, in the Mares’ Hurdle.

Jack Kennedy

Festival wins: 10
Best years: 2018, 2021 (4 wins)
First Festival winner: Labaik, 2017 Supreme Novices' Hurdle
Gold Cup winner: Minella Indo (2021)

Jack Kennedy rode his first Cheltenham Festival winner at the age of just 17 when successful in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle on the temperamental Labaik and just a year later he went very close to being leading rider at the Festival with four more winners for Gordon Elliott but lost out to Davy Russell only by virtue of fewer placed horses. Kennedy rode four winners again at the 2021 Festival where the highlight was getting the ride on Gold Cup winner Minella Indo after Rachael Blackmore had chosen to ride Henry de Bromhead’s other runner A Plus Tard. But Kennedy has had more than his share of bad luck too, missing the 2020 Festival after breaking his leg and suffering the same fate again last year.

But Kennedy goes into this year’s Festival as the leading Irish rider this season ahead of reigning champion Paul Townend, having recently ridden a century of winners in a season for the first time, and can look forward to some good rides for Elliott’s stable. He could have a tricky decision to make in the Stayers’ Hurdle however as Teahupoo and Irish Point are sharing favouritism in some lists and Kennedy rode each of them to victory in a Grade 1 last time, Teahupoo in the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle and Irish Point in the Christmas Hurdle at Leopardstown, though their trainer expects him to partner the former.

The Cross Country Chase, in which Elliott has several leading contenders, including last year’s one-two Delta Work and Galvin, could provide Kennedy with another difficult choice. Both that pair are among his past winners at the Festival, Delta Work in the 2021 Cross Country and Galvin in the National Hunt Chase the same year, while Coko Beach also won well on his cross-country debut under Kennedy at Punchestown recently. Otherwise, Kennedy’s best chance could come in the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle on the unbeaten Gigginstown mare Brighterdaysahead, while his stable will doubtless also provide him with some good opportunities in the handicaps.

Mark Walsh

Festival wins: 8
Best years: 2019, 2022 (2 wins)
First Festival winner: Bleu Berry, 2018 Coral Cup
Champion Hurdle winner: Espoir d'Allen (2019)

Unlike Jack Kennedy, Mark Walsh was well into his career in his thirties before registering the first of his eight wins to date at the Cheltenham Festival which came on Bleu Berry for Willie Mullins in the 2018 Coral Cup. That was a chance ride which came about after injury to Ruby Walsh resulted in Bleu Berry’s intended partner Paul Townend switching to a stablemate.

Mark Walsh has ridden at least one winner at each Festival since, his two biggest successes coming on 16/1 shot Espoir d’Allen for Gavin Cromwell in the 2019 Champion Hurdle and Sire du Berlais who was a still bigger outsider when a 33/1 winner of last season’s Stayers’ Hurdle. Espoir d’Allen and Sire du Berlais are two of the best horses Walsh has partnered for J. P. McManus, with his opportunities outside Ireland having expanded since the retirement of Tony McCoy.

The owner’s Irish-trained runners will once again provide Walsh with some of his best chances at this year’s Festival, none better than the Willie Mullins-trained Dinoblue in the Mares’ Chase. Walsh rode her to finish a good second to stablemate El Fabiolo in the Dublin Chase last time after four straight wins which included a Grade 1 victory in the Paddy’s Rewards Club Chase at Leopardstown in December. Stablemate Fact To File, who finished alone under Walsh in the Ladbrokes Novice Chase at the Dublin Racing Festival, will start favourite for the Brown Advisory Novice Chase, while Walsh can also count on McManus being well represented in the Festival’s handicaps.

Nico de Boinville

Festival wins: 16
Leading jockey: 2019
Best year: 2019 (3 wins)
First Festival winner: Whisper, 2014 Coral Cup
Champion Hurdle winner: Constitution Hill (2023)
Gold Cup winner: Coneygree (2015)

As stable jockey to Nicky Henderson, all being well Nico de Boinville, the Festival’s leading rider in 2019, should have been looking forward to riding the two highest-profile British-trained horses at Cheltenham this year, Constitution Hill in the Champion Hurdle and Shishkin in the Gold Cup. Between them, the pair have already provided de Boinville with four of his 16 Festival wins to date, both being former winners of the Supreme. But de Boinville will now be without last year's outstanding Champion Hurdle winner after a respiratory infection has put paid to Constitution Hill defending his title.

Constitution Hill has hardly given de Boinville a moment’s worry in their eight races to date, but the same can't be said about Shishkin, the 2022 Arkle winner, who refused to race on his intended reappearance at Ascot and then stumbled and unseated his rider when looking all set to win the King George, but he’s a top-class chaser when everything goes right and completed his Gold Cup preparations with no dramas in the Denman Chase at Newbury.

De Boinville will have his first Festival ride on another stable star Jonbon who’s seeking a first win at the meeting having come up against Constitution Hill in the Supreme and El Fabiolo in the Sporting Life Arkle when ridden by the currently sidelined Aidan Coleman. El Fabiolo stands in Jonbon’s way again, in the Queen Mother Champion Chase this time, though de Boinville kept his 100% record on J. P. McManus’s chaser with wins in the Shloer Chase and Tingle Creek Chase earlier this season. The unbeaten Jeriko du Reponet gives de Boinville a chance of winning a fourth Supreme but perhaps his best chance of a winner in Constitution Hill's absence comes in the Triumph Hurdle with Sir Gino, he too a winner of all three of his starts.

Rachael Blackmore

Festival wins: 14
Leading jockey: 2021
Best year: 2021 (6 wins)
First Festival winner: A Plus Tard, 2019 Novices' Handicap Chase
Champion Hurdle winner: Honeysuckle (2021, 2022)
Gold Cup winner: A Plus Tard (2022)

Rachael Blackmore has ridden at least one winner at each of the last five Festivals, with her most successful year being 2021 when six wins made her the leading jockey there. The Gold Cup eluded her that year when she rode runner-up A Plus Tard but went one better on the same horse in 2022. A Plus Tard also provided Blackmore with her first Festival victory in the novices’ handicap chase in 2019 but her most fruitful partnership at the Festival came with the mare Honeysuckle, winner of two Champion Hurdles and successful for a second time in the Mares’ Hurdle at last year’s Festival. However, that was Honeysuckle’s final race and, with stablemate A Plus Tard now recently retired himself, Blackmore will have to look elsewhere for any Festival winners in 2024.

While Blackmore didn’t ride Henry de Bromhead’s first Gold Cup winner Minella Indo, she did partner that horse to victory in the 2019 Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle and has good prospects of winning another Festival race with him in the Cross Country Chase after an encouraging debut in that discipline when fourth under top weight in a handicap in December. Envoi Allen is another Festival regular and Blackmore will be bidding to win the Ryanair Chase with him for the second year running, a race she also won on Allaho for the same owners Cheveley Park Stud in 2021.

Slade Steel, recently runner-up at the Dublin Racing Festival, gives Blackmore a sound chance of winning her second Baring Bingham Novices’ Hurdle in four years in the Robcour colours after Bob Olinger in 2021, while Monty’s Star could bid to go one better than his half-brother Monalee in the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase, finishing runner-up in that race and later fourth under Blackmore in a Gold Cup.

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