RaceiQ at the Festival: Home By The Lee jumps to it
By Andy Stephens
Last Updated: Thu 12 Mar 2026
The clue to winning the Stayers’ Hurdle is in the race title, and Home By The Lee showed all his stamina to win the Close Brothers-sponsored feature at the fifth attempt.
All eyes were drawn to Kabral Du Mathan as he cruised through the contest and seemed to have all bases covered between the final two flights.
But when Harry Skelton asked him to finish things off after the final flight, his petrol tank suddenly emptied. His final three furlongs were 13.04sec (quickest); 14.64 sec (second quickest) and then 17.05 sec (only sixth quickest). Having looked sure to win, he ended up finishing fourth.
The first six home were separated by about seven lengths, with Home By The Lee’s swift jumping and rich reserves of staying power helping him prevail.
Gold Cup clues
He got a Jump Index score of 8.2 out of 10 and gained almost three lengths in the air. By contrast, Ballyburn, the runner-up, got a score of 7 and lost 2.73 lengths with his jumping.
Home By The Lee needed a good jump at the final flight and he got one. He lost only 1.83mph at the obstacle and took just 0.1sec to get back up to speed. Ballyburn lost 4.83mph and took 0.5sec to recover.
It was clearly a story of what might have been for the mercurial runner-up, who was quicker than the winner through each of the final five furlongs but ran out of the road. He hit 37.88mph when in full flow, which is the quickest any horse has run at Cheltenham this week.
Earlier, Wodhooh was a model of efficiency in a tactical Close Brothers Mares’ Hurdle.
Jack Kennedy sat third on her for the first two miles, stalking the leaders racing economically, before the race started to develop properly half a mile from home.
It was at two-mile stage that all the runners hit their top speeds, with Wodhooh hitting 35.73mph.
She polished off the final half mile in 54.76sec, with only Jade De Grugy, who tried to ambush her from off the pace, being quicker (54.33sec).
Wodhooh’s Finishing Speed Percentage of 106.37% reflected the steady nature of the pace. Her consistent jumping merited a 7.7 out of 10, the fourth time she has got that score in her past seven starts.
Fact To File’s late withdrawal from the Ryanair Chase opened the door for Heart Wood, who he had trounced 12 months earlier, to go one better.
Heart Wood clocked the top speed in the race, 36.49mph, and jumped best, gaining 6.66 lengths with his fluent leaping. Jonbon gave his all in his 28th race, keeping up his astonishing record of never having finished out of the first two, but simply could not keep up.
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