Cheltenham festival: classy Kargese gives respite to punters

It’s fair to say it’s been a difficult week for punters, but a Willie Mullins handicap ‘good thing’ at least provided some relief early on day four as the well-backed Kargese (3/1F) made no mistake in the William Hill County Hurdle to give the trainer his eighth win of the 2025 Cheltenham Festival. 

The record of rider Paul Townend in Festival handicaps was given much prominence beforehand and that history has never been more relevant here – Townend was riding his fifth winner in the County for Mullins in the past 11 years here – and Kargese was probably value for more than her 1½-length margin at the line. 

The field notably quickened turning into the straight and, while it’s still a long way home from that point, the strong-travelling winner – a two-time Grade One winner as a juvenile last year and turning up here on handicap debut – was never passed from that point as she saw off Ndaawi (25/1) in second with Mullins also saddling home the third and fourth for good measure in last year’s scorer Absurde (5/1) and Ethical Diamond (16/1) respectively. 

“She’s as tough as nails – as tough a filly as I’ve ever seen,” said the Festival’s all-time leading trainer to Racing TV’s Lydia Hislop.

“And we thought she was nicely handicapped – we maybe thought all of last year’s four-year-olds were better handicapped than last year’s juveniles.

“We said we’d take a chance and they’ve run well.”

Owner Kenny Alexander was celebrating his second winner of the meeting and said: “It’s better to be lucky than good!

“A great training performance by Willie and this horse is very talented. 

“She ran Sir Gino close at Aintree and Majborough close in the Triumph last year.

“She’s a bit of a rocket, she’s very highly-strung, but she settled a bit better today and has got a massive engine. 

“When Paul decided to ride her, you got the feeling that this might be the day.”