Timeform assess the claims of a leading Cheltenham Festival contender. Ryanair Chase favourite Fact To File is next under the microscope.
Pros
Having been a high achiever in bumpers – he was second in the Champion Bumper in 2023 – Fact To File skipped hurdles altogether and has quickly made into a top-class chaser, boasting a record of being yet to finish out of the first three in a total of ten career starts. When he landed the odds in last season’s Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase (replay below) back at the Festival to complete a hat-trick in novice chases, Fact To File looked as though he’d prove one of the biggest threats to stablemate Galopin des Champs’ bid to win his third Gold Cup this year.
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Fact To File’s successful reappearance in the John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase over just short of two and a half miles, when he had Galopin des Champs back in third, did little to alter that view and he even replaced his stablemate as ante-post Gold Cup favourite. But only temporarily as, in two further clashes with Galopin des Champs over three miles at Leopardstown, Fact To File has come off the worse. But if those defeats – second in the Savills Chase and a slightly closer third in the Irish Gold Cup – have likely ended Fact To File’s Gold Cup aspirations, they have opened the door to a potentially more realistic chance of Festival success in the Ryanair.
Fact To File didn’t settle fully in the Savills Chase and succumbed to stronger stayers again in the Irish Gold Cup when losing second to long-priced stablemate Grangeclare West on the flat. But he shaped well for a long way last time and gave the impression that the drop back to the two and a half miles of the Ryanair will suit him ideally, a race Willie Mullins has won five times since 2016. Two of the stable’s Ryanair winners, Min and Allaho, had also won the John Durkan earlier the same season.
A rating of 171 not only makes Fact To File the top Ryanair contender on form for this year’s race but makes him an above-average candidate by historical standards. Among recent winners, only dual scorer Allaho has been successful with a rating above 170.
Cons
Although top rated, Fact To File will likely need to be at the top of his game in the Ryanair which has the look of a particularly competitive edition, more so than the odds of 6/4 or thereabouts on offer for Fact To File would suggest. Two of his biggest threats could also be dropping back from three miles as Banbridge and Il Est Francais finished one-two in the King George VI Chase last time. Even if Banbridge, tailed off on unsuitably soft ground in last year’s Ryanair, goes for the Gold Cup instead, that still leaves the free-wheeling Il Est Francais who could take some pegging back over the shorter trip. Spillane’s Tower, who was just half a length behind Fact To File at Punchestown, and last year’s winner Protektorat, who bolted up at Windsor last time, are in the mix too, so there is no shortage of credible rivals.
One factor which could potentially make Fact To File more vulnerable is drying ground. He has done all his racing on ground softer than good, and while conditions at Punchestown in the autumn were no worse than good to soft, Fact To File has shown he handles much more testing going like many by his sire Poliglote do, notably when winning the Brown Advisory on heavy ground.
Analysis by John Ingles
Dan Barber's verdict
Fact To File is a year on in his development compared to stablemate Ballyburn but the picture facing him feels cut from the same cloth; both have had their reputation dented along the way by a rival with outstanding ability, forcing a rethink in terms of Cheltenham targets. For Ballyburn, butting heads - or at least trying and delivering an airshot - to Sir Gino forced him down the path of the longer-distance Grade 1 novice, and for Fact To File the Ryanair likely awaits after the relentless Galopin des Champs forced him to crack twice around Leopardstown whilst seemingly on course for a Gold Cup instead.
But whereas Ballyburn has proven himself over something like the equivalent trip, Fact To File must show he has the gears to cope with a Ryanair test that promises to be unrelenting in terms of pace and the resulting pressure on jumping. That would have been a question even had only reigning champion Protektorat and a couple of other familiar faces been in the picture, but the added dynamic of the jet-propelled wildcard Il Est Francais makes that issue potentially all the more thorny for the short-priced favourite.
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