Road To Cheltenham: Taking stock of the chasing scene

This Road To Cheltenham column takes stock of the chasing scene as it stands after the Dublin Racing Festival. Its sister piece has already addressed the hurdling landscape.

Ruby Walsh suggested on last night’s show that a cheekpiece fetish might be developing at Closutton. Of course, he was citing the recent DRF success Majborough and Kaid D’Authie have enjoyed with those accessories, so I don’t know what you’re sniggering about at the back.

Majborough’s first-time pair of fluffy sideburns, combined with Mark Walsh’s belief he should enjoy their full benefit via riding his mount with utter positivity, “turned him inside out” in the words of Willie Mullins.

His success in last Sunday’s Dublin Chase was the calibre of performance of which his fans had long suspected him capable. As a sidebar, it’s also recovered this column’s ante-post position on the BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase.

Majborough dominated from the outset, approaching his fences more directly and jumping straighter than ever before. He never looked likely to be beaten once asserting with a narrow lead at the second. He then outjumped all comers at the usual fourth, the third fence having been bypassed, and continued to attack his fences until he’d leapt his rivals into submission.

Solness didn’t enjoy being bossed on his own manor. Disputing the lead approaching the first, he jumped characteristically right – inconveniencing an unwisely positioned Marine Nationale – and was then rousted along, hugging the outside rail as he passed the stands. He tried to contest the lead but could not match the winner’s jumping and perhaps wasn’t in the mood.

Whether he despised the first-time visor or the challenge to his front-running auth-or-it-tay – palpably failing to channel his inner Cartman – is hard to discern. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKJprZqU_oU] Soft ground probably didn’t help either. 

Marine Nationale hung in there. He was remarkably unbothered by Solness taking his ground mid-air at the first – a real asset in the hurly-burly of a two-mile championship race – but reached for the second, in an echo of the miscommunication that had almost seen Sean Flanagan dislodge himself at Christmas.

However, he seemed to be at full revs at halfway and although he tried to reach the winner from three out, he was never able to get remotely on terms. The effort of the chase left him vulnerable to typically right-jumping Found A Fifty, who stays further and on whom Jack Kennedy waited to pounce whilst Flanagan made his move.

That meant Found A Fifty jumped the last in second place but Marine Nationale’s courage has never been in question, jaunty though his head carriage is. Despite Kennedy sliding across him to the stands’ rail soon after landing, Flanagan’s mount battled back once switched around him to re-asset by a head.

The million-dollar question is whether Majborough can replicate these tactics at Cheltenham? Both Quilixios – if present – and Clarence House runner-up Thistle Ask will seek to be in the vanguard. Solnesss will also surely be along for that ride. The first four fences come up quickly, in two pairs, in the Champion Chase, and it’s critical not to make an early error.

This will place increased pressure on Thistle Ask’s habit of jumping right. He and Solness are likely to compete early for who can least contain that unhelpful trait. Notwithsatnding his fall at the final fence in last year’s Queen Mum, Quilixios has tended to be a sound jumper. And the fact remains that Majborough has only got it right once this season.

However, the idea he was gifted the lead in the Dublin Chase, rather than having to earn it, is to ignore Solness’ early work. Granted, Majborough will need to go sustainedly quicker over a different early pattern of fences to achieve the same position at Cheltenham but his early fractions in the first half mile of the Arkle were quicker than any in the vanguard in the Champion Chase.

Admittedly those races were on successive days rather than the same card but the ground was called good-to-soft for both by Timeform and the underlying point stands: Majborough does not lack for pace. He clocked 55:66 over that distance whereas Energumene was 56:72, Quilixios 56:48, Solness 56:38 and (a more patiently ridden) Marine Nationale was 56:67.

Majborough’s errant, unfocussed approach to the take-off side of fences is the element most corrected by cheekpieces, admittedly on the scant evidence of a single start, but I do remain of the view that four out and, most especially, two out on the more tightly turning Old Course could yet pose him problems.

The latter was where he ran wide into the straight in the Arkle before running down the fence to his left and making a chance-ending blunder from which – amazingly – he briefly threatened to recover. Still, 6-1 to find out is better than 13-8.

The size of the likely Champion Chase field appears more fluid at the bigger prices than, for example, the Champion Hurdle. I can envisage the dead eight, but I guess there’s a possibility than sentiment or hope might inflate that number.

In the case of Kaid D’Authie, reapplied cheekpieces addressed his indolence. It meant he was always shadowing the disappointing Final Demand in the Ladbrokes Novices’ Chase at Leopardstown and Walsh was able to apply increasing pressure purely via his mount’s superior jumping from six out.

Reverting to a left-handed track might also have helped, given he jumped persistently left during his first two assignments – second to Kitzbuhel at Punchestown, when sympathetically ridden and the winner’s preference for going right-handed might have flattered him in relative terms, and then beating Wingmen at Fairyhouse, where he idled on hitting the front.

Mullins was unsurprised by Kaid D’Authie’s transformation, noting that the cheekpieces were “bringing out the sort of ability he shows me at home”. “He always been disappointing to me on the racetrack,” his trainer added. Well, no more. Fences are also an important factor – he tended to kick hurdles out the way.

By contrast, from as early as the third, the 30/100 favourite started putting down on Paul Townend – either stuttering into fences when unmanaged or firmly inserting a safety step when asked up. At the fourth last, he corkscrewed awkwardly over it. At the third last, he faltered on the approach and by the next – having worked his way back on terms on the flat – he was outjumped and done with.

“Paul said he twisted a little bit in the air,” Mullins added, of Final Demand. “There might be some little niggle there.” Watching live, I had wondered whether he had also backed out when pressure was applied – my mind pinging forward the memory of him going well turning in for the Turners last March only to already be beaten even before taking off for the final hurdle.

However, as I mentioned on this week’s show (available at top of column), on watching the race a few times again, I think a physical ailment is likely to have been the more pertinent explanation – not that the two thoughts are mutually exclusive, mind.

No explanation has yet been forthcoming from the Closutton Order, but then we didn’t get to hear about Kopek Des Bordes’s post-surgery (minor) infection until after he didn’t stand his ground for the Irish Arkle at the declaration stage. At least the brethren have renounced the media. Oh.

To wrap up my thoughts on cheekpieces – and to finish where I started – I’m even more convinced that we’ll see Galopin Des Champs sporting a pair at Cheltenham. This was a potential narrative I raised in the first episode of the current series of the Road, back on the Thursday prior to the course’s November meeting.

I found it interesting that Ruby Walsh went from dismissing the concept out of hand on Monday to conceding it might yet come to pass, even if he still doesn't buy the reasoning, such is the trend for cheekpieces at the yard, three days later.

Mullins mentioned the idea immediately after Inothewayurthinkin seized Galopin’s crown last March, pointing to the latter’s ballooning early jumping and inability to attain Townend’s preferred pitch. Throwing in the odd over-large jump has long been something the dual Gold Cup winner does, even when dominating at Leopardstown, but this was wrong place, wrong time.

I’m inclined to take at face value the analysis point shared by the trainer on Monday, too – that he was worried Galopin’s “exertions at Christmas might tell on him”. This is a grizzled ten-year-old, veteran of three Gold Cups, who’d sustained a setback in training that required him to debut this season in the Grade One Savills Chase.

Although that was a steadily run affair whose form was not advertised in the Irish Gold Cup – albeit the winner Affordale Fury finished lame – for Galopin, at that stage of readiness, it was a solid enough start against a race-fit winner. It’s understandable that he won’t have the immediate bouncebackability of his younger days, especially when starting on the backfoot.

Many took the view Monday was a step backwards on his campaign trail, but I don’t agree. It was a much more solidly run race and, if he was indeed knocked backwards in his preparations by his seasonal return, he is entitled to build on this again. Throw on some cheekpieces to enable him to jump through his fences rather than linger airily above and you’ve got a player in my opinion.

I even toyed with the 10-1 available to become the first horse since Kauto Star in 2009 to regain his Gold Cup crown and the first since Cool Dawn in 1998 to win at a double-digit age. However, even though Galopin is now best priced at 8-1, there were simply too many younger horses with good claims to this prize to get involved. There’s a price point where that would change, though.

Advised 28/11/25: William Munny at 12/1 for the Unibet Champion Hurdle [Non-runner]

Advised 21/12/25: Majborough at 6/1 for the BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase

Advised 02/02/25: Talk The Talk at 11/2 for the Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle

Advised 08/01/26: I Am Maximus each-way at 33/1 for the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup