John Ingles highlights how the leading trainers have been faring heading into the Cheltenham Festival.
WILLIE MULLINS
- Winners and runners in last 14 days (up to Sunday March 13): 14/33
- Strike rate in last 14 days: 42.4%
- Timeform run-to-form percentage in last 14 days: 63.6%
Willie Mullins has saddled at least three winners at every Cheltenham Festival since 2010, including a joint-record of eight in 2015, and is the most successful trainer in the meeting’s history. Another six wins at last year’s Festival not only took his career total there to 78 but also made him the meeting’s leading trainer for the eighth time.
With 14 winners in as many days in the fortnight before Festival week, including a four-timer at Leopardstown last Monday, Mullins clearly has his string in top form going into Cheltenham as shown by an excellent run-to-form percentage.
Among the stable’s best chances of further success this week are Sir Gerhard in Wednesday’s Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle and Allaho who will be bidding to win Thursday’s Ryanair Chase for the second year running. Mullins holds a strong hand again, too, in Wednesday’s Champion Bumper, with his runners headed by Facile Vega in a race he has won a record 11 times.
GORDON ELLIOTT
- Winners and runners in last 14 days: 10/44
- Strike rate in last 14 days: 22.7%
- Timeform run-to-form percentage in last 14 days: 47.7%
Gordon Elliott is the only trainer to have interrupted Mullins’ domination of the Festival in the last decade or so, doing so in both 2017 and 2018, and in the latter season equalling Mullins’ record of eight winners at the meeting.
Only Mullins has sent out more winners than Elliott in the past couple of weeks and a total of five wins over the weekend at Navan and Naas puts the yard in a good place on the eve of the Festival. Elliott’s total could have been a lot more as no fewer than 14 of the stable’s 44 runners this month finished runner-up which at least indicates the string is in good form overall.
All eyes will be on Tiger Roll in his bid to bow out with a third win, and sixth at the Festival in all, in Thursday’s Cross Country Chase, while Galvin looks a leading contender for Friday’s Gold Cup after beating main market rival A Plus Tard in the Savills Chase at Leopardstown earlier in the season.
PAUL NICHOLLS
- Winners and runners in last 14 days: 9/32
- Strike rate in last 14 days: 28.1%
- Timeform run-to-form percentage in last 14 days: 53.1%
Paul Nicholls didn’t manage to get a win on the Festival scoreboard last year but he has been leading trainer at the meeting six times and his career total of 46 is bettered only by Mullins and Nicky Henderson.
With nine winners in the last fortnight, Nicholls has both an excellent strike rate this month and a good run-to-form percentage. He’ll be hoping Complete Unknown’s win in Saturday’s EBF Novices’ Handicap Hurdle Final at Sandown will be a pointer towards further success at Cheltenham this week.
Stage Star puts his unbeaten record over hurdles on the line in the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle on Wednesday, bidding to succeed where stablemate Bravemansgame failed last season and add that race to the Challow Novices’ Hurdle he won earlier in the season. Bravemansgame is back this season, likewise unbeaten over fences, and looks the one to beat in the following Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase.
DAN SKELTON
- Winners and runners in last 14 days: 9/37
- Strike rate in last 14 days: 24.3%
- Timeform run-to-form percentage in last 14 days: 37.8%
Three of Dan Skelton’s four wins at the Cheltenham Festival have come in the same race – the County Hurdle – while Roksana gave the trainer his first Grade 1 victory at the meeting in the 2019 David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle.
The stable stats from the last couple of weeks look good on the face of it, with a near one-in-four strike rate reading very well, and Skelton goes into Cheltenham week on the back of a double at his local track, Warwick. However, a modest run-to-form percentage indicates the yard could be performing better overall.
West Cork looks to have been laid out as this year’s County Hurdle horse on Friday but with stablemates Nube Negra, Shan Blue and Protektorat going in the Champion Chase, Ryanair Chase and Gold Cup respectively, it’s a sign that the stable is less reliant on handicappers these days and achieving its ambitions of having genuine Grade 1 contenders at the Festival.
NICKY HENDERSON
- Winners and runners in last 14 days: 3/16
- Strike rate in last 14 days: 18.8%
- Timeform run-to-form percentage in last 14 days: 50%
Britain’s most successful Festival trainer has had at least one winner at the meeting every year since 2008, and when Chantry House, Nicky Henderson’s Gold Cup runner on Friday, won at last year’s Festival, he brought his trainer’s career total to 70.
A strike rate in the past few weeks of less than one-in-five might not be something to write home about by Henderson’s usual standards but concerns over a lack of winners in the build-up to this year’s Festival have probably been overplayed. Three winners from seven runners over the weekend came as a timely ending for an admittedly quiet spell for Seven Barrows, but they haven’t had that many runners and the stable’s run-to-form percentage places Henderson between Nicholls and Elliott.
A win from either Jonbon or Constitution Hill in the opening Supreme Novices’ Hurdle would certainly confirm all is well ahead of main hope Shishkin going for a third consecutive Festival victory in Wednesday’s Queen Mother Champion Chase.
HENRY DE BROMHEAD
- Winners and runners in last 14 days: 0/16
- Strike rate in last 14 days: 0%
- Timeform run-to-form percentage in last 14 days: 18.8%
Six wins for Henry de Bromhead at last year’s Festival meant he only lost the Leading Trainer Award on countback to Mullins, but with an unprecedented sweep of the Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and Gold Cup, it was a remarkable week which has raised the bar for what might be expected from the stable this year.
De Bromhead’s stable hasn’t been firing on all cylinders for much of the season and he's not had a winner in the last two weeks, though he did record a double at Naas at the end of February, a day before the period in question.
The yard's patchy form didn’t stop Honeysuckle winning a third Irish Champion Hurdle last month on her way to defending her Champion Hurdle title at Cheltenham, while last year’s Ballymore winner Bob Olinger is another whose preparation has been hard to fault as he goes for the Turners Novices’ Chase on Thursday. Others returning include last year’s Gold Cup one-two Minella Indo and A Plus Tard, though the latter would appear to hold the stronger claims of the pair this time.
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