The immense new grandstand which will put the capacity at Cheltenham at 67,500 will not be finished until next March but elsewhere here on Wednesday, the final preparations for the four-day Festival meeting which opens on 10 March were well under way. The connections of possible runners in the meeting’s 11 handicap events now know the burdens that their horses are likely to carry after the weights were published at a media event on Wednesday afternoon, while the simultaneous publication of the final two lists of entries - for the Champion Bumper and Foxhunters’ Chase - also means that the possible cast list for National Hunt’s showpiece meeting is now complete.
The Cheltenham turf is in prime condition for the meeting’s 27 races, having received less rain than many parts of the country in recent weeks, and Simon Claisse, Cheltenham’s clerk of the course, reported that the going is no worse than soft anywhere on the track.
“It is a mixture of good-to-soft and soft on both the Old Course, which stages the races on the first two days, and the New Course, which we use on the second two,” Claisse said. “It’s probably predominantly soft on the Old Course, while the New Course is just a little bit quicker and the cross-country is in between the two.
“On Sunday I was at home 12 miles away and it pelted down all day, we had something like 19mm of rain, yet on the weather station here in the evening, it said there had been 4mm. At the moment there is nothing too cold [in the long-range forecast] and it is remaining relatively unsettled with maybe another inch of rain in the next 10 days. If it warms up a bit and the grass starts to grow, it can change very quickly.
“At the moment I’m very pleased with the way it looks. The grass growth is a little behind last year because the soil temperature is still relatively cold but it looks like it’s starting to pick up.”
Ian Renton, who is in charge of Cheltenham in his role as the Jockey Club’s regional director, said work on the new grandstand is on schedule for completion in time for next year’s Festival while some limited areas will be available next month.
“The steppings at the front of the new stand will be in use and the ground floor will be made into a temporary bar,” Renton said. “One of the issues we have here when there’s a crowd of nearly 70,000 on Gold Cup day is queuing for the car park, bars and loos, so the way to minimise that is to provide more facilities and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Renton also addressed a controversial complaint last week by Willie Mullins, Ireland’s champion trainer, that prize money levels at the Festival meeting are inadequate and should be doubled.
“We sympathise with Willie and everyone in wishing to see an increase in prize money but it’s something we very much need to look at globally,” Renton said. “In the UK we know we need more prize money and we’re working hard with the government to try and achieve that from central funding.
“With regards to Cheltenham and the Festival itself, we are pretty proud of the prize money we put up here. We’ve got the five richest Grade One races in the UK and Ireland, which are generally two to three times the value of their counterparts elsewhere. I think it is much more the general prize money throughout the sport that we need to look at.”
The total number of entries for the 2015 Festival is 1,906, an increase of five per cent on last year, while minor adjustments have been made to the distances of three races. The Ultima Business Solutions Handicap Chase on the opening day will be staged over three miles and a furlong, up from three miles and half a furlong, and will include 20 fences rather than 19. The Fulke Walwyn Memorial Chase will extend by half a furlong to three miles and two furlongs and 22 fences, while the valuable handicap chase on the Thursday card will revert to two miles and five furlongs having been run over two-and-a-half miles last year.
Doubts remain over the running and riding plans for several significant contenders at next month’s meeting, including the outstanding novice chaser Coneygree, who could run in either the RSA Chase or the week’s showpiece event, the Gold Cup.
“If the ground got too fast, he wouldn’t run in anything,” Sara Bradstock, the wife of Coneygree’s trainer Mark, said. “But the faster it is, the more likely it is that we wouldn’t go for the Gold Cup. If it was suitable for him, we’d be tempted by the Gold Cup because he is eight. The reason he’s an eight-year-old is because he’s fragile, he’s got very long, spidery legs and a lack of self-preservation, so if everything seemed even and we had a good chance in the Gold Cup, we would consider it.”
Harry Fry, who supervised the preparation of Rock On Ruby to win the Champion Hurdle 2012 when assistant to the champion trainer Paul Nicholls, will saddle the same horse in the World Hurdle but remains uncertain who will be in the saddle.
Noel Fehily, Rock On Ruby’s regular jockey, is likely to be claimed to ride Zarkandar for Paul Nicholls, leaving Fry with a vacancy aboard the 8-1 third-favourite.
“There’s every possibility that Noel won’t be available,” Fry said. “I’ve had a few text messages about it this morning, but it’s two weeks to go yet so things could change. Plans are fluid, anyway.
“We’re going into the race confident that he will stay [the three-mile trip] and we’re certainly going to ride him that way. In some ways we don’t feel any pressure coming to the race, if he stays hopefully he will run a huge race but if he doesn’t, we haven’t lost anything trying.”
One jockey booking that has been confirmed is Richie McLernon’s partnership with Jonjo O’Neill’s Holywell, a leading contender for the Gold Cup after an impressive victory at Kelso last time out. Tony McCoy was aboard Holywell at Kelso but he will be claimed to ride Carlingford Lough for owner JP McManus in the Gold Cup, allowing McLernon to resume a partnership that has proved to be a winning one at the last two Festival meetings.
“He did everything right at Kelso and jumped really well,” O’Neill said. “He does want the ground quick, but AP said that he got a good feel off him and he loves Cheltenham.
“Richie’s won on him at the last two Festivals and there’s no reason not to put him up as he does a good job. He rides the track very well.”
Aurore D’Estruval, the leading British-based contender for the OLBG Mares’ Hurdle on the opening day of the Festival, has been ruled out of the race after suffering a minor setback.
“She had a bit of a setback and she’s missed five days,” John Quinn, Aurore D’Estruval’s trainer, said on Wednesday. “This is day six and she’s nearly right, but she won’t be going to Cheltenham, unfortunately. It’s nothing serious, it’s just come at the wrong time.”
The news that Aurore D’Estruval will be absent on 10 March saw Annie Power, one of five favourites from the Mullins stable on the opening day of the meeting, shorten still further in the betting. Annie Power is now top-priced at 4-6 and as short as 4-9 for a race won by Mullins’s Quevega for the last five seasons.
Mullins has also won the Champion Bumper a record eight times in the past and is responsible for seven of the 46 entries for this year’s renewal. His possible runners include Bordini, the strong ante-post favourite and an impressive winner of his two previous starts this season.
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