Third consecutive Triumph Hurdle winner in Top 40

Galopin Des Champs retained his Cheltenham Gold Cup crown with another top-class performance on the final afternoon of the Festival. The eight year old was winning at the meeting for a third time and is unlucky not be unbeaten at the fixture. Ridden much more prominently on this occasion compared to last year, the Willie Mullins trained runner jumped very well with his biggest obstacle in the final half a mile being the loose horse (Fastorslow). Taking over at the second last, he sealed his win with another bold leap at the final fence. Featured in the Top 40 Prospects before he had even run for his current connections, the Timos gelding is an outstanding chaser and one of the best of recent times.

Talking of the Top 40, Majborough produced the most pleasing result of the whole week when capturing the Triumph Hurdle - it is the third consecutive year that the winner of the Grade 1 four year old hurdle has featured in the Top 40. The ex-Daniela Mele trained gelding had shaped well on his Irish debut in the Spring Juvenile Hurdle at the DRF last month and reversed placings with stablemate Kargese. A big powerful son of Martinborough, his jumping was deadly and he showed good battling qualities to lead on the run-in. His future lies over fences and is another tremendous prospect for Closutton. Mullins has won four of the last five Triumph Hurdles. Majborough was the Top 40's third winner of the Festival following the successes of Ballyburn and Grey Dawning earlier in the week.

The selections in the One Jump Ahead Cheltenham Festival Update performed well with Majborough (6/1) and Galopin Des Champs (advised @ 5/4) winning. L'Eau Du Sud (advised @ 7/1) ran a cracker in the County Hurdle finishing second, while Corach Rambler (advised @ 20/1) was placed in the Gold Cup and Quai De Bourbon was third in the concluding Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle. It has been a successful week with 6 winners, plus British Champ (18/1) provided the icing on the cake winning on his racecourse debut at Kempton on Wednesday evening. Well done to featured trainer Ben Pauling, too, who sent out Shakem Up'Arry (8/1) to win the Plate Handicap Chase, while The Jukebox Man (18/1) did everything bar win in the Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle. 

Thank you very much to those clients who have emailed during the course of the week, it is greatly appreciated and makes all the hard work worthwhile.

Aside from the Cheltenham Festival, I spoke to Charlie Appleby on Friday morning and had a run through his Godolphin owned string for the forthcoming edition of Ahead On The Flat. I will be updating my website early next week with full details of AOTF and the Updates and how to order. Ahead On The Flat is due to be published in early April.