CORNELIUS LYSAGHT'S CHELTENHAM FESTIVAL PREVIEW
Mar 11, 2025
Like everyone else, THOROUGHBID can’t wait to see how everything unfolds over the four spectacular days of the Cheltenham Festival, but there will be one or two particular favourites that racing’s online auction house will be looking out for…
What a fabulous performer ITS ON THE LINE has been since his purchase by Emmet Mullins at ThoroughBid’s March 2022 Sale, and it’ll be fascinating to see whether the eight-year-old can make it third time lucky in the St James’s Place Festival Hunters’ Chase. Since being bought for £8,000, the horse - which runs these days in the green and gold of JP McManus - has not only been a rare old money-spinner for Mullins, but also a magnificent standard-bearer for ThoroughBid itself. In all, he’s lined up twenty-one times – both under Rules and in point-to-points – winning ten, and despite finishing second on both visits to Cheltenham, the equivalent races have come his way both at Aintree and at Punchestown (twice). The formbook indicates that the son of Presenting has not been as prolific recently as he can be, but Mullins isn’t known as being just about the shrewdest trainer in these islands for nothing. So plenty still believe the man who signed himself as Mr S Claus when buying at ThoroughBid’s Christmas Sale will be providing them with a springtime gift in the Cotswolds. And if it’s not to be with Its On The Line then maybe it will be with another of his fancies, which include Gold Cup possibility Corbetts Cross and handicappers So Scottish or McLaurey.
Meanwhile, the potential interest in the Hunter’s Chase does not end there: GRACCHUS DE BALME may be a big outsider, but prior to defeat in the mud at Leicester and a fine second in the almost always significant Walrus Hunters’ Chase at Haydock, this £12,500 purchase from ThoroughBid’s July 2024 Sale produced form that could make the 66/1 odds on offer look almost insulting.
Everyone at ThoroughBid loves MASKADA, the mare which became the first Cheltenham Festival success that they sold when storming home to beat subsequent Grade One winner and Mares’ Chase runner-up Dinoblue in the Grand Annual (2023). The £80,000 purchase by the Mariga family’s Coolmara Stables operation, which was in training with Henry de Bromhead, is now retired, but these are headier days than ever for the owners. Because not only does Maskada now have a lovely filly foal at foot by Order Of St George, but the name of their unbeaten hurdler THE BIG WESTERNER, also trained by de Bromhead, is on the lips of many ahead of the Albert Bartlett on Gold Cup Day. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, they bred the French three-year-old Wild Bill Hickok who made a stunning debut in the Sue Magnier colours at Compiegne in early March. The Albert Bartlett has famously proved a better race for surprises than leading hopes, but The Big Westerner’s half-brother Stay Away Fay took the prize two years ago – at odds of 18/1 – and the way the Marigas’ luck is going at the moment, anything could happen.
Kopek Des Bordes’ status may have grown to ‘Banker of the Week’ levels for many, but at ThoroughBid HQ the apparently gilt-edged Michael O’Sullivan Supreme Novices’ Hurdle prospects of Willie Mullins’ star are spoken of only in hushed tones. That’s because second in the betting behind the two-time Leopardstown hurdles winner as it trades at odds-on is ROMEO COOLIO, a gelding bred by Will Kinsey who, with business partner Ross Alberto, founded racing’s online auction house. Although, of course, most breeders are pleased to sell their stock, Kinsey watchers have been left in little doubt in the build-up to Cheltenham that they also retain a particular affection for horses in whose first steps they’ve played such a significant part. And it’s not just the Gordon Elliott-trained Romeo Coolio, runner up in last year’s Champion Bumper: Kinsey, who bought as a foal and sold as a three-year-old the 2023 Mares Chase winner Impervious, has also been involved in the buying and/or selling of the Mullins Festival Bumper hope, Copacabana, and Shearer, a leading fancy in the Hunters‘ Chase for the McNeill family and Paul Nicholls and his jockey-daughter Olive.
Businessman John Romans was star of the show at ThoroughBid’s January Sale when securing the two top lots, and even if neither of them will be running at Cheltenham, there’s much interest in the horse he has that will be there, JPR ONE. Cheltenham probably owes one to Haldon Gold Cup-winning JPR One, which has entries in the Queen Mother Champion Chase, the Ryanair and Grand Annual, as the eight-year-old was galloping to very likely – probably certain – victory in the Arkle Trial on the course in November 2023 when stumbling at the last and depositing jockey Brendan Powell on the turf. The horse hasn’t done much wrong in three races this season, so Romans, whose Elegant Escape finished sixth in the Gold Cup in the season in which he also won the Welsh Grand National (2018/19), is understandably hopeful of a big run, most likely in the Grand Annual.