Willie Mullins monopolised the main events on the first day of the Cheltenham Festival, but Neil Mulholland took just as much pleasure from his win with The Druids Nephew in the Ultima Business Solutions Handicap Chase, his first success at the meeting.
Barry Geraghty rode the 8-1 winner for Mulholland, who suffered a difficult start to the campaign when his chaser The Young Master was disqualified from an easy win in a valuable event when it emerged that he had not been qualified to run. “This is our World Cup and this is where we want to be,” Mulholland said. “It’s the big stage and we’re on it today. It’s a fantastic feeling and it will take a while to sink in. There have been no hiding places for this horse because every race is so competitive.”
The Druids Nephew could now be a contender for the Grand National at Aintree next month, while The Young Master will line up for the Grade One RSA Chase on Wednesday’s card.
“We’ll worry about today for now,” Mulholland said. “Today was always a stop towards the National, but I’ll have a word with Barry and see how we get on. I’m not going to talk the National up at this stage.”
JP McManus saw his defending champion Jezki beaten in the Champion Hurdle, but the leading owner was able to celebrate his birthday with a winner as Cause Of Causes, trained in Ireland by Gordon Elliott, took the four-mile Toby Balding National Hunt Chase.
“He made a mistake at the last fence, but Jamie [Codd] gave him a great ride and it all worked out,” Elliott said. “It’s great to have a Festival winner on the Tuesday, last year I had to wait until Friday but now I can enjoy tonight. All being well, this horse will now go for the Grand National next month.”
With Mullins adding his four-timer, the win was one of five on the day for Irish-trained horses, while Mulholland and Rebecca Curtis, whose Irish Cavalier took the concluding handicap chase for novices, were the only British-based trainers to record a victory.
There was one sad postcript to the day after it emerged that the National Hunt Chase runner Theatre Queen, who was treated for some time following her fall in the race, on the track and in the horse ambulance, could not be saved and had to be put down as a result of her injuries.
The crowd at Cheltenham on the opening day of the 2015 Festival was a new record for the first card of the meeting, with 63,249 racegoers in attendance. The figure is a rise of nearly 11% on last year’s total, which was itself a first-day record for the Festival since it became a four-day meeting in 2005.
The previous highest crowd on the opening day was 61,132 in 2002 and Cheltenham could now be on course to beat the record four-day attendance of 237,369 in set in 2012.
