The 2025 Cheltenham Festival: why did it have to be Constitution Hill?

When Jango Baie produced his dramatic late surge to snatch victory in the Arkle Chase at last week, he was also completing the most unlikely of centuries for Nicky Henderson.

Since the trainer’s Precious Cargo had taken a tumble in the novices’ handicap chase on the first day of the 2020 Festival, the master of Seven Barrows had sent out 100 successive Cheltenham Festival runners who had not fallen, unseated or been brought down.

On average, Jump jockeys typically hit the deck once every 17 rides, so you would get chunky odds on such a magical sequence in the cauldron of Cheltenham.

Joyeuse extended the run to 101 when finishing sixth in the Mares Hurdle and 102 looked a formality with

Constitution Hill

lining up in the Champion Hurdle 40 minutes later. 

The unbeaten champ flew the first, winged the second, pinged the third and zoomed over the fourth. The RaceiQ data tells us he entered that flight travelling at 29.46mph and exited it going 30.49mph. He was flying.

Everything was coming typically easy to him as he stalked the leaders, travelling powerfully, when it suddenly all went horribly wrong. Constitution Hill misjudged the fifth flight, disturbed by a rival, and came crashing down. 

101 and out. Why did it have to be him? Why! 

We had all been waiting two years for this day, yearning to find out if his purring V12 engine still has all its powers after trials and tribulations. We needed examination by Cheltenham hill, but we didn’t get it.

Yet there was no time to dwell on this shock to the system  because those shocks kept coming. Relentlessly.

In fact, the next thunderbolt was just 80 seconds away. As Constitution Hill got to his feet and began running loose, his old adversary State Man was powering to the final flight about six lengths clear with a second victory in the opening day highlight at his mercy. 

We all know what happened next. Two Champion Hurdle winners on the floor in little over a minute. It turns out that combining to win 19 Grade One victories can count for little when it matters most. 

Brighterdaysahead was also heading for a fall. From grace. What price the big three all blowing out? The Trifecta gave us a decent clue, paying £4,332 to a £1 stake.

Jeremy Scott, trainer of the admirable winner, Golden Ace, barely seemed to be able to comprehend what he had witnessed. And by the end of a meeting full of extraordinary twists and turns, plenty of punters were in a similar daze.

Fears that we were in for day after day of mismatches came to nothing. Instead, we got day after day of surprises. 

Majborough

(1-2), Constitution Hill (1-2),

Ballyburn

(4-7),

Galopin Des Champs

(8-13), Jonbon (5-6),

East India Dock

(5-4),

Final Demand

(6-4) and

Teahupoo

(7-4) were all sunk. Who would have thought?

The only inevitable outcome was that Ireland again ran away with the Prestbury Park, this time by a margin of 20-8. Just six of the British-trained winners were based in English stables: Jango Baie, Golden Ace,

The New Lion

, Caldwell Potter,Doddiethegreat and Jagwar. 

By contrast, Wille Mullins had a record-equalling ten winners at the meeting from 76 runners, moving him up to fourth in the trainers’ championship, albeit he will not be retaining his title. 

He didn’t have things all his own way, either, with State Man snatching defeat from the jaws of victory plus Marjborough, Ballyburn, Final Demand, and Kopeck De Mee all being beaten market leaders. 

Britain’s top three trainers - Dan Skelton, Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson – mustered 53 challengers between them, with multiple champion Nicholls having as many runners at Sedgefield (two) as at Cheltenham on the opening day of the meeting. Incidentally, he won both of those races in County Durham. 

You would need to include the runners of the next three handlers in trainers’ table to nudge past Mullins’ tally of 76 runners. Olly Murphy had three, Nigel Twiston-Davies ten and Venetia Williams 11. It shows what the home team are up against, especially as none could match anything like the quality (never mind quantity) that Mullins had as his disposal. 

Gordon Elliott had an exasperating week and could barely speak after finally breaking his duck in the concluding contest. A dozen of his beaten runners went off at single-figure odds, even with the hobbling Jack Kennedy, not long back from a sixth leg break, pulling off an incredible feat to be aboard plenty of them. If anyone deserved a winner it was him, but the Festival can taunt the best. 

By contrast, Gavin Cromwell had four days to savour capped by

Inothewayurthinkin

’s emphatic Gold Cup triumph. 

He also struck with Stumptown in the Cross Country, while Only By Night,Robbies Rock, Sixandahalf, Thecompanysergeant and Brides Hill all finished runner-up in their respective races. In total, 14 of Cromwell’s 26 runners finished in the money and it would have been 15 had Now Is The Hour not come down two out when looking a big player in the National Hunt Chase. 

Cromwell and JP McManus now have a big decision to make over whether to unleash Inothewayurthinkin in the Randox on Saturday fortnight. 

He will be thrown in at the weights, running off a mark of 160 with 11st 5lb to shoulder, and stamina looks his strong suit. But his connections will balance that against the seven-year-old still giving the odd fence a nudge plus having just 22 days to recharge his batteries. 

McManus has seven other entries in the race, including last year’s brilliant winner I Am Maximus and the well-fancied Iroko. Does he even need Inothewayurthinkin in his team for Aintree, when he could instead freshen him up for Punchestown? 

Much probably rests on whether McManus is excited by the prospect of pulling off a double achieved only once, by Golden Miller in 1934. He has been here before as Synchronised, his only previous Gold Cup, lined up in the National a month later. That ended tragically, with Synchronised suffering a fatal injury. 

The annual battle between bookmakers and bettors was a non-event, even though you would have made a small profit had you blindly backed all the favourites (skewered by results in the handicaps).

Overall, the layers cleaned up big time in the Graded races and most of their ante-post ledgers will be the stuff of fantasy.

The first race on the final day, the Triumph Hurdle, provided a vivid example of how events swung their way.

One moment the big three in the market – East India Dock, Lulamba and Hello Neighbour – looked like fighting out the finish and most of the 60,000 crowd were roaring.

In the next, Poniros, a 100-1 chance making his hurdling debut, swept by them all. Poniros. Who? Someone pressed the mute button in the grandstands. 

Jockey booking suggested that Poniros was tenth or eleventh in the Mullins pecking order and Jonjo O’Neill Jr, his rider, had considered going to Doncaster instead. 

It was that kind of gloriously unpredictable Festival. A meeting where five-year 101-race sequences were always going to come a crocker.