Leaving the Cotswolds Saturday morning, wedged into the back of a red Range Rover on the most roundabout way to Heathrow ever choreographed. Waze would not approve. Not that I notice, or care. Hat boxes, croissant wrappers, rolling bags, overcoats, dog-eared racecards, a betting slip or ten, empty ginger shot bottles, hole-punched badges, a pile of Racing Posts under my arm and a weather-worn, day-defying pink Stetson at my feet.
Cheltenham 2025 is in the books.
“Still standing. That’s better than some of them.”
That’s how jockey Nico de Boinville described his (our) status as he walked to his car after a petrol stop on the M4 on his way to ride five races at Kempton Saturday afternoon. He won on his first Cheltenham ride, way back Tuesday afternoon, a win-it-once masterclass aboard Jango Baie in the Arkle. Whew, the start of a big week, a sign of things to come. Nicky Henderson’s stable jockey lost his next nine. Recorded on the scorecard and registered forever.
A fall at the fourth hurdle with undefeated 1/2 favorite Constitution Hill in the Unibet Champion Hurdle, all balloons eventually pop. A pick-up-a-check-salvage-something second aboard 5/6 Jonbon after a shuddering error early in the Queen Mother. More seconds on Impose Toi, Jeriko Du Reponet and Lulamba; crafty, canny rides but during a week when winners are the hardest to come by, just as it should be on championship days in any sport. Twenty-eight races over four days. It’s not the urgency or energy of the three-day Festival but, by God, it’s still the best in the world. Horses and horsemen delivered yet again. From start to finish, the improbable and impossible, the heart-stopping and heart-wrenching, the bedazzling and befuddling.
A sliver here, a seam there, a gap made, a gap missed, a pick-up at the wings, a put-down at the base…that was the difference in defining or deflating, justifying or mystifying. So many walked away wondering what could have been. Joe Tizzard, still without a Cheltenham win under his own name as trainer, with two seconds. Jack Kennedy, limping into the jocks’ room Tuesday morning, three seconds, three thirds in 17 bone-grinding rides. Gigginstown and Bective blanked, a combined 0-for-34. Yeah, hard to come by.
And for a chosen few, it all fell right. One time, my son.
Jeremy Scott winning one for the all the little guys with Golden Ace in the Champion Hurdle. Owner Ian Gosden swinging for the fences, jockey Lorcan Williams and his plucky mare knocking it out of the park. The 2023 and 2024 Champion Hurdle champions falling in the 2025 edition. Bambi and then Snow White. Lucky? Sure. But as Scott said, you do have to jump the jumps.
Sean Flanagan justifying all the hard days, all the hard falls, all the hard decisions, all the hard miles (from County Wexford, Ire. to Reisterstown, Md. to Cheltenham, U.K.) with a step-up ride on Marine Nationale on a day when we all looked inside and thought about how lucky we were to be there while Michael O’Sullivan somehow was not. Marine Nationale and Jazzy Matty writing another chapter in Cheltenham lore, sweeping another ghost across Cleeve Hill. Gaps made and gaps missed. The fragility of the sport, the fragility of life. Right there thumping inside the sport’s broken heart.
Doddiethegreat mending another sport. Caldwell Potter helping a family.
The motionless beauty of Keith Donoghue and the deadly accuracy of Gavin Cromwell.
Rachael Blackmore waiting and waiting and then winning like she had never left. An injury-plagued season erased with two wins in three hours Thursday afternoon. Bob Olinger, an enigmatic Cheltenham wunderkind. The crowd still enraptured by a jockey who is cold and calculating on the track and authentic and original off it.
Puturhandstogether, The New Lion, Art Of Entitlement…the stars of today and tomorrow.
Fact To File, awesome in the Ryanair. Shortening to 2 ½ miles and swerving Galopin Des Champs. When the cat’s away…
Jody Townend winning one for all the little sisters of the world.
Connell, Curtis, Curling and Collins. Russell and Rebecca. Greenall and Guerriero. Brian and Ben. Danny and Danny. Jonjo Jr. with a double. Wadge and O’Keefe. Mr. B. T. Stone and Mr. R. James. A season made, a career in a day for a few. And a shackle getting tighter by the step for others, another long walk to the car, a longer drive home and a lot of long days between now and next March. Someday, someday.
Mark Walsh and Paul Townend tying with four winners apiece, Townend getting the champion jockey prize because of a second on Galopin Des Champs but Walsh getting the big one with Inothewayurthinkin. Supplemented for £25,000 to the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup…never be afraid of one horse and all that jazz. The upstart 7-year-old taking the crown of the established 9-year-old who broke tepidly and raced deliberately, teasing the packed crowd for a moment when he reached the lead late, but unable to hold his up-tempo, turn-the-taps rhythm. Nothing lost, other than a race and perhaps the mantel. Golden Miller, Arkle, Best Mate and Kauto Star still stand alone. An off day? A passage of time? Maybe both.
“That’s why it’s hard to do,” said Patrick Mullins as Townend patted Walsh on the back of his left shoulder high on the hill and the rest of us were trying to make sense of it all somewhere down below.
J.P. McManus, Frank Berry and the team behind jump racing’s biggest arsenal dancing the worst dance as Inothewayurthinkin walked into the winner’s enclosure and Corbetts Cross took his last breaths. A game of unpredictably sometimes teeters off the edge. Oh, that edifying edge.
Willie with 10 winners during the week and, if you think numbers don’t matter, 10 losers in the Triumph Friday, a race he won with a 100-1 first-time starter, and 65 during the week. Yeah, 65. Kopek, Lossiemouth, Bambino Fever, Kargese, Fact To File, Dinoblue and Jasmin De Vaux doing what they were always meant to do and the likes of Lecky Watson, Jimmy Du Seuil and Poniros shocking the yard and the world. Majborough, Ballyburn, State Man, Final Demand and a few other headline acts trying and failing.
Wodhooh, an undefeated mare, winning in the dying light of the waning day. Brake lights, helicopter whirls, the steam train’s steam and all of us wending our way home after four days of sport. As Nico said, “Still standing.”
Cherished memories. Fresh ambitions. Venerable friends. An indelible place.
Fact To File on his way to the winner’s enclosure after winning the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup.
