Trainer report: who to follow at the Cheltenham Festival
With the Festival just around the corner, we’ve picked out some of the leading trainers to focus on at this year’s meeting
Willie Mullins
There’s only one place to start and that’s with the most successful trainer in the history of the Festival. Willie Mullins will be looking forward to unleashing another exciting crop of novices as well as his established stablestars.
The Irish Champion Trainer has a number of solid looking favourites this year with the likes of Galopin Des Champs and Facile Vega but he’s had some big priced winners at the Festival too in recent times including 50-1 mares’ novice winner, Eglantine Du Seuil, and 20-1 County winner, Arctic Fire.
Dan Skelton
The Warwickshire trainer has already enjoyed his fair share of Cheltenham Festival success in a relatively short career with a trio of County wins and a Grade 1 mares’ hurdle victory for Roksana.
The former assistant to Paul Nicholls looks to have his best squad yet for this year’s Festival with the likes of Langer Dan, Protektorat and Shan Blue to name just a few with fair claims. It’s interesting that most of his team arrives fresh for the Festival this time, having swerved many of the big handicaps en route to Cheltenham, and that could give his runners a crucial edge.
Paul Nolan
The Irish famously dominated last year’s Festival and trainer Paul Nolan was a part of that success with Mrs Milner’s impressive win in the Pertemps. The mare comes back for a crack at Grade 1 company this time and the shrewd trainer has a few other interesting runners lurking in the handicaps.
Chiricahua has the right sort of profile for the Coral Cup and former Ballydoyle inmate, HMS Seahorse looks like he could be leniently treated for the Boodles.
