The 2025 Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup: stats and trends

What Grade? Class 2 What course? New Course

What distance? 3m 2f (21 fences).

Prize-money? £55,000 Ages: For 5yo+ 

Weights and Allowances: 0-145 Handicap

Since 2009, every winner has carried more 11st or more and six of those carried at least 11st 9lb. Inothewayurthinkin, a Grade One winner at Aintree next time, carried 12st.

Twenty of the past 24 winners ran over around three miles or more in their last race. Milan Native (2020) and Mount Ida (2021) were rare exceptions and could suggest a training knack for this race from trainer Gordon Elliott. Inothewayurthinkin also spectacularly bucked the trend last year on his 10th start and fifth over fences, having never run over three miles previously - let alone this extended trip.

Eight of the last 14 winners wore headgear.

Twelve of the last 14 winners came from the top six in the market and the 13-8 favourite won by eight lengths last year.

Jamie Codd has ridden the winner four times since 2009 and from a total of 17 rides in the race, registering in excess of £19 in level stakes profit. He was fourth on Dunboyne last year.

Only two of the last 21 winners won on their previous run before Cheltenham.

Keep an eye out for Gordon Elliott’s runners - his 21 runners have yielded two winners but also two seconds, two thirds, three fourths and a fifth. Mount Ida won the race in 2021 for Denise Foster, the temporary licence-holder at Cullentra House Stables while Elliott was serving a six-month suspension.

Since 1992, only four horses older than nine have won the race - In Truth (1998), Maximise (2004 - watch above), The Package (2015) and Chambard (2022). Seven-year-olds and eight-year-olds have mostly dominated in recent years while Inothewayurthinkin became the first six-year-old to win after Stumptown finished runner-up the year before - both for trainer Gavin Cromwell.

St Patrick’s Thursday ended appropriately with an Irish winner when Angels Dawn (10-1) took the spoils. It was a first first Festival success for trainer Sam Curling and amateur jockey Pat King.

Curling said: “It was brilliant. She was unlucky the last day in the race at Punchestown. She has always promised a lot and it is unbelievable for a small team like ours. We only have six horses for the track I’d say as we are nearly all point-to-pointers. We buy and sell a lot of horses and we sold Marine Nationale as that is our game.

“Alfie (Sweetnam, owner) could have sold her a few times along the way but he didn’t and he kept the faith. She jumps well and she loves that bit of extra distance. Him (Pat King) and Derek O’Connor ride all the point-to-pointers and I’m delighted for him to get a big winner. We didn’t know which way it was going to go but she is tough. You get as big of a buzz watching the horses go on and win for someone else.

“Once the rain came I was very confident. If she had won the last day she would have gone up in the weights but she didn’t. It looks that way now (that the last race was a blessing in disguise)."

 King said: “Unbelievable! I thought I would never feel it. That’s my first Festival ride. I’ve won at the October meeting, but I have never ridden here. Sam has played a big  part in my career recently and I’m delighted for him. He had her spot-on for today. We did think she had a big chance today. It hasn’t sunk in yet.”

Venetia Williams saddled 40-1 winner Chambard as well as 66-1 Didero Vallis in third in a memorable triumph for the trainer at the Cheltenham Festival.

While this was the yard's second winner of the week, this was a first Festival triumph for 29-year-old Lucy Turner - the daughter of Philip Turner who was Williams' head lad for 24 years before his recent retirement.

"Absolutely unbelievable," said the winning rider. "To ride any winner at Cheltenham - it's what you dream of but to win at the Festival is amazing.

"You dream about it from when you're a little girl but in the past few years after getting some better opportunities you hope maybe 'on day'.

"I'd have been happy for it to be at the hunter chase meeting - this definitely tops that!"

Mount Ida delivered in the lucky last for favourite backers in a remarkable Cheltenham Festival success for jockey Jack Kennedy, trainer Denise Foster and owners KTDA Racing.

The well-fancied favourite only had a handful of rivals behind her once jumping the final fence in the back straight and she was not travelling particularly sweetly, but Kennedy bided his time and weaved his way through runners and Mount Ida came good in the straight, ultimately forging to a ready success by over six lengths from Cloudy Glen (33/1) in second with Shantou Flyer (11/2) in third. Hold The Note (9/1) was well back in fourth.

After his third winner of the week, Kennedy said: "I think it was just a bit of a shock to the system for her - she had been running in small fields and there was a ferocious gallop over the first couple. Although I was tailed off at one point I still ended up getting there too soon!

"I was thinking if things don't start going right fairly soon I probably wouldn't have had any other choice but to pull her up, but after that thought she started jumping straighter and quicker. She was brilliant after that.

"I can't believe it to be honest!"

The 9-1 shot, winning for the first time over fences, capped a great day for Gordon Elliott after his earlier wins on the card with Samcro in the Marsh Novices' Chase and Sire Du Berlais in the Pertemps Final.

Milan Native had never previously won over fences and was having his first start beyond 2m 6f. He was also providing jockey Rob James with his first winner at the Festival.

Kilfilum Cross, runner-up in 2019, again had to settle for second. Elliott said: "This race has been the plan for the last few weeks for this horse, especially after we decided to run Ravenhill in the other race (National Hunt Chase). It's a race we like to win and Rob gave him a great ride. We decided we wanted to claim off him and he's very good value for his 7lb."

A horse with very classy form in his younger days, Any Second Now was covered up, arrived at the second-last with plenty of running and ran on strongly to land the Kim Muir at 6-1 for trainer Ted Walsh, owner J P McManus and top amateur rider Derek O'Connor.

Walsh landed the race twice as a jockey in the 1970s and the charm of the Festival still holds strong. "Cheltenham is magnificent, pure magic," said the trainer. "I've been racing all over the world, but there's nowhere like Cheltenham."

The 8-1 chance showed class and no little guts in victory as jockey Noel McParlan celebrated a first Festival winner after a brave front-running ride aboard a willing partner for trainer Warren Greatrex.

The eight-year-old didn’t put in a flawless round by any means but got into a lovely rhythm on the second circuit and the rider slowed the pace out in front for a tactical advantage on the run for home.

The looming Mall Dini looked to be travelling all over the winner turning in, but the gallant Missed Approach was not to be denied.

“He stays, he jumps and is brave,” said Greatrex, who had earned his training fee in the run-up to the Festival. “The owner wanted to go to Uttoxeter on Saturday for the Midlands National, but I persuaded him to come here.”

2017 – Domesday Book:

It wouldn’t be unkind to say that Domesday Book was a surpirse winner of the 2017 Kim Muir, even his trainer Stuart Edmunds could not believe that his 40-1 chance, ridden superbly by Gina Andrews, stayed on to head Pendra in the closing stages.

“It’s unbelievable, it hasn’t sunk in. I think it’s as big a surprise to me as everyone else. I came here thinking if he finished mid-div we’d do OK!,” said the trainer, celebrating his first Cheltenham Festival winner.

It was a strongly-run event, but the pace held up, with the first two home on the sharp end throughout and Domesday Book, who was having just his second start for Edmunds, showed guts and tenacity by the bucket load to rally up the hill.

2016 – Cause Of Causes:

Cause Of Causes, the archetypal ‘Spring horse’, had not won a race since the previous Cheltenham Festival, but he was produced to perfection by Gordon Elliott and although he still had 17 rivals in front of him at the top of the hill, he took off under Jamie Codd and shot clear to win by a remarkable 12 lengths.

The eight-year-old relished the return to better ground and this victory more than made amends for his unlucky defeat in the race two years earlier. However, it was not all plain sailing for Codd.

The winning rider explained: “It was not a straightforward race, I wanted to get him into a rhythm, but I was never happy the whole way.

“I was hoping they had gone too quick as he is not the sort of horse you can ask to make big jumps, so I was trying to get him to the top of the hill on the bridle.

“Coming down the hill, he then came alive and started to pass horses. Once I passed one, I passed another six or seven in 10 or 15 strides. I was probably there too soon but there was no looking back once I had got to the front.”

2015 – The Package:

The Package became the first twelve-year-old to win the Kim Muir since Waggoners Walk in 1981 when a set of first-time blinkers proved the catalyst to a remarkable return to form from the David Pipe-trained veteran.

The Package had been out of sorts in three runs since an honourable third at the previous year’s Festival but had reportedly worked superbly in the blinkers in the build-up to this race and he never gave jockey Jamie Codd a moment’s worry as he sauntered round before cruising clear after the second last.

It was a sensational performance from a revitalised horse, but one that he could not replicate in two subsequent starts before he was retired.

2014 – Spring Heeled:

Spring Heeled, partnered by Robbie McNamara, proved a poignant winner in 2014 after McNamara’s cousin, JT McNamara, was left paralysed from a fall in the same race 12 months earlier.

Riding for Jim Culloty, famous for the three Gold Cup wins of Best Mate, McNamara had won the closing bumper on Wednesday in the same Dr Ronan Lambe colours on Silver Concorde.

It was Culloty's first winner in seven months and the trainer could not hide his relief afterwards.

He said: "That was unbelievable. He was a bit fractious as a young horse, a bit of a worrier and as a result of giving him time he ended up well handicapped.

“I thought if things went his way he had a right chance but there were 24 runners, so he needed luck."

2013 – Same Difference:

March 14, 2013 turned out to be a very special day for Nigel Twiston-Davies’ stable amateur Ryan Hatch, whose 7lb claim, along with the first-time visor, turned out to be crucial in the narrow victory of Same Difference.

It turned into a protracted duel between Same Difference and the Derek O’Connor-ridden Super Duty from the bypassed final fence (the last of four fences bypassed in total) as the pair drifted towards the inside rail.

However, Hatch urged his mount into a slender lead and the pair denied favourite backers by a head at the line, providing Hatch with his first Festival success.

“I didn’t dare believe I had won," the winning jockey said. "I knew I was up against Derek O’Connor, the top boy in Ireland, and when the result was called it was a fair relief.

“Nigel has been really good to me, giving me rides throughout the season. I’m very grateful to him.”