Cheltenham awaits new champions

This week’s Cheltenham Festival will crown two new champions, hails the return of a superstar, and sees cycling queen Victoria Pendleton competing at National Hunt’s Olympics months after learning to ride.
With injury depriving the brilliant Faugheen from defending his Champion Hurdle crown, today’s opening day showcase is there for the taking. But such is the strength in depth of Faugheen’s trainer Willie Mullins the Irish training phenomenon still saddles two of the top three in the betting.
Heading the market is his gutsy mare Annie Power, generally on offer at 2-1. She was supplemented after advertising her well-being in a Punchestown prep. A winner of 13 of her 15 races Annie Power was primed to win at last year’s Festival only to come a cropper at the final flight in the mares hurdle.
Mullins, who sent out a record eight Festival winners in 2015, also saddles Nichols Canyon, who had second favourite Identity Thief two lengths back when winning at Leopardstown in December. British hopes are carried chiefly by The New One. Trainer Nigel Twiston-Davis is hoping it’s a case of third time lucky.
Tomorrows sees equine greatness grace Prestbury Park in the shape of returning hero Sprinter Sacre. Nicky Henderson’s imposing charge routed his rivals to land the 2013 Champion Chase.
An irregular heart beat put his career in jeopardy for a season. He made a comeback last year, only to disappoint when pulling up behind Dodging Bullets. This term though, on the evidence of two emphatic victories, the old swagger is back.
He is a best-priced third favourite behind Mullins’ odds-on shot Un De Sceaux, who stamped his claim when trouncing former champion Sire De Grugy at Ascot in January. Thursday’s World Hurdle looks at the mercy of Thistlecrack but whatever his fate trainer Colin Tizzard’s heart will be pumping quicker than the milk machines back at his West Country dairy farm 24 hours later.
The popular farmer-cum-trainer sends out Cue Card - one of the aces in a Gold Cup field robbed of injured defending champion Coneygree. Cue Card cemented his standing as one of the top chasers in the business in the King George VI Chase at Kempton.
He is in line for a £1 million ($1.44m) bonus should he scale the chasing tree after wins at Kempton and Haydock. Among those out to stop him is Mullins’ Vautour, a brilliant Festival winner 12 months ago but for whom stamina is a question mark after Cue Card pipped him in the shadow of the post in the King George over a shorter distance.
Mullins, who has never won a Gold Cup, also has Don Poli, like Vautour chasing a Festival hat-trick and Djakadam, runner-up to Coneygree last year.
The Gordon Elliott-trained Don Cossack, travelling ominously well when a penultimate-fence faller in the King George, is another with a huge chance.
Half an hour after the Gold Cup, double London 2012 Olympic cycling gold medallist Pendleton, who had never sat on a horse this time last year, aims to add a remarkable chapter to her career by lining up in the amateur Gold Cup - the Foxhunters Chase. She told London’s Evening Standard that her motivation for accepting the challenge was not money, but a fresh challenge. In stark contrast to conditions Pendleton experienced at the 2012 Lee Valley VeloPark, the going at Cheltenham is forecast as soft in places.