{"id":344850,"date":"2026-03-13T21:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T21:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/344850\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T21:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T21:33:10","slug":"ireland-edges-festival-tally-15-13-but-cheltenham-rivalry-rejuvenated-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/344850\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland edges festival tally 15-13 but Cheltenham rivalry rejuvenated \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cheltenham Festival<\/a>\u2019s Anglo-Irish rivalry is rejuvenated after the balance of power came down to the final race on Friday, with the raiders ultimately edging the battle by 15 winners to 13.<\/p>\n

Moral victories don\u2019t pay out here but pre-festival confidence that the outcome would be a lot closer than Prestbury Cup odds of 1\/6 about Ireland was justified in spades.<\/p>\n

In the end, a Henry de Bromhead team distraught at the earlier loss of their veteran star Envoi Allen after the Gold Cup had a bittersweet victory with last year\u2019s festival winner Air Of Entitlement, and that decided it.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, Irish success on the final day was confined to Willie Mullins<\/a> and a superb hat-trick highlighted by Gaelic Warrior\u2019s Gold Cup success. <\/p>\n

It brought Mullins\u2019s tally for the week to eight winners and a 12th leading trainer award at the festival. Paul Townend was top rider with four winners.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s Gold Cup crowd of just over 67,000 brought the total attendance for the four days to 226,223. That was up 8,130 on last year\u2019s festival tally, which had prompted significant moves by the Jockey Club to address a dramatic slice in attendance statistics since 2022\u2019s record of more than 280,000.<\/p>\n

A year after springing a 100\/1 JCB Triumph Hurdle shock with Poniros, Mullins opened the day with Apolon De Charnie winning at a bookie\u2019s benefit 50\/1.<\/p>\n

Patrick Mullins did the steering on the ex-French horse who, like Poniros, was having his first start for the champion trainer in the juvenile championship. <\/p>\n

Runner-up to Proactif in a race in France on his jumping debut, Apolon De Charnie came through to beat Maestro Conti and Minella Study. Proactif started a 7\/2 favourite for the Mullins team but could manage only ninth.<\/p>\n

\"PatrickPatrick Mullins on Apolon De Charnie at Cheltenham. Photograph: Tom Maher\/Tom Maher <\/p>\n

It was a fifth success in a row in the race for Mullins, who equalled Nicky Henderson\u2019s record Triumph tally of seven.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly 50\/1 this year and not 100\/1 \u2013 I\u2019m so disappointed!\u201d said the beaming trainer, who ran nine in the race. <\/p>\n

\u201cI could see three or four of mine all in with chances and was trying to watch them all, but I\u2019d be watching for Patrick one way or another \u2013 whether he had a chance or not \u2013 and every time I looked at him I was very happy.<\/p>\n

He came through to win the race at the last, then the other horse [Minella Study] kept going and I thought we were beat, but I loved the horse\u2019s attitude. When he heard the Cheltenham roar, he put down his head and was very brave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His son, enjoying his 10th festival success and a first at Grade One level over obstacles, gave a glimpse of stresses involved in preparing for the biggest week of the year, even for the most successful figure in racing history. A dip in stable form before Christmas, and even during the festive period, evidently produced sceptics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very proud of my father. I\u2019ve never seen him doubt himself as much as he has this winter,\u201d the most successful amateur rider ever said. \u201cHe keeps getting a lot of advice from people saying he\u2019s doing this wrong or that wrong, but he sticks to his guns, and he gets it right most of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mullins got a two-day ban for careless riding afterwards. Maestro Conti\u2019s rider, Harry Skelton, got three days for carless riding when drifting across the fourth, Selma De Vary,<\/p>\n

Dinoblue justified 11\/8 favouritism in some style when recording back-to-backs victories in the Mrs Paddy Power Mares\u2019 Chase.<\/p>\n

\"DinoblueDinoblue ridden by Mark Walsh wins the Mrs Paddy Power Mares’ Chase on day four of the Cheltenham Festival. Photograph: Bradley Collyer\/PA Wire <\/p>\n

Spectacular jumping meant she took jockey Mark Walsh to the front four fences out, but Dinoblue has become a metronomically consistent talent and had more than enough in hand to hold Only By Night up the hill.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer jumping was extraordinary, and if you had a horse which jumped like that every day of the week, it would make this game very easy,\u201d Mullins said. It was a 16th festival winner for Walsh, who commented: \u201cShe loves fast ground and that ground today is ideal for her \u2013 good fast ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Backers of the Mullins-trained 9\/4 favourite Doctor Steinberg were always fighting a losing battle in the Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle, as he ran much too keenly from the start. He got away with that in last month\u2019s Dublin Racing Festival but not here and was ultimately pulled up behind the 20\/1 winner, Johnny\u2019s Jury under Cork-born rider Gavin Sheehan.<\/p>\n

Forty years after his Gold Cup victory on the legendary Dawn Run, Jonjo O\u2019Neill combined with one son, AJ, to land the William Hill County Hurdle with Wilful, ridden by another son, Jonjo jnr. It was the partnership\u2019s second winner of the week, after Johnnywho in the Ultima.<\/p>\n

\u201cAJ keeps telling me every evening that he\u2019s improved them all, I\u2019m beginning to believe him now!\u201d said the Irishman, who had saddled 27 festival winners before this week. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cheltenham Festival\u2019s Anglo-Irish rivalry is rejuvenated after the balance of power came down to the final race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[151390,157524,61,60,43,109905],"class_list":["post-344850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cheltenham-festival","tag-cheltenham-gold-cup","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-willie-mullins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}