The elite of the jump racing world will descend upon Gloucestershire this week as the 2022 edition of the Cheltenham Festival gets underway on Tuesday.
Few fixtures in the National Hunt calendar hold a more prestigious place than Cheltenham, which routinely attracts some of the biggest attention from the sport's most respected trainers.
The likes of Willie Mullins and Nicky Henderson each hold plenty of winning experience at this track, but there are fresher faces who will be seeking to make their mark.
The top names in horse racing will be competing for their share of a total prize purse worth close to £5million, with the showpiece Gold Cup on Friday's curtain call accounting for £625,000 of that.
Mirror Sport has broken down a few of the major trainers to watch out for in the coming days, some of whom are looking to advance already well-established legacies over the next 28 races.
Willie Mullins
Cheltenham Festival winners: 78
Best chances this week: Galopin Des Champs (Turners Novices' Chase), Vauban (JCB Triumph Hurdle), Al Boum Photo (Gold Cup)
Few names in racing are quite as synonymous with Cheltenham success as Kilkenny's Willie Mullins, whose record haul of 78 Festival winners is more than any other trainer has accumulated.
His prolific form at this course is best summarised by the fact 'WP' will bring either the outright or joint-favourite into roughly half of the 28 events up for grabs in the coming days.
A two-time winner of the Gold Cup with Al Boum Photo in 2019 and 2020, Mullins has re-entered the 10-year-old into Friday's main event in an effort to reclaim one of the most coveted crowns in racing.
Galopin Des Champs will be another of his main steeds to keep tabs on in the Group 1 Turners Novices' Chase on Thursday, with Mullins targeting the top trainer award for the fourth year in succession.
Nicky Henderson
Cheltenham Festival winners: 70
Best chances this week: Shishkin (Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase), Constitution Hill (Sky Bet Supreme Novices' Hurdle)
Seemingly the only trainer with a realistic chance of catching Mullins' record at present, Henderson clinched his maiden Cheltenham win all the way back in 1985—and the relationship has only flourished since.
The six-time British Champion Trainer has since added 69 more Festival victories to his credit, and he'll enter around 20 or so horses in a bid to close the gap further on Mulling this year.
Among those 70 Cheltenham triumphs is a record eight wins in the Champion Hurdle, three more than his nearest rival, Peter Easterby.
Henderson's most likely chance for major success this week sees Shishkin go up against Mullins’ Energumene in the Queen Mother Champion Chase on Wednesday.
Gordon Elliott
Cheltenham Festival winners: 32
Best chances this week: Pied Piper (JCB Triumph Hurdle), Galvin (Gold Cup), Teahupoo (Triumph Hurdle)
A man with fine form running in his favour during the weeks building towards Cheltenham, momentum suggests Gordon Elliott's entries will be worth watching this week.
Chief among those is Gold Cup contender Galvin, who's tipped as a joint-favourite to jostle for the crown with less than a week to go.
Two-time Grand National-winner Tiger Roll is no longer the superpower he once was, though the 12-year-old veteran will still draw plenty of interest in Wednesday's Glenfarclas Chase.
This year's Festival is also a story of redemption for Elliott, who was absent from last year's meeting due to having his licence revoked after a photo of him sat aboard a dead horse went viral.
Henry De Bromhead
Cheltenham Festival winners: 15
Best chances this week: Honeysuckle (Unibet Champion Hurdle), A Plus Tard, Minella Indo (Gold Cup), Bob Olinger (Turners Novices' Chase)
A rising force in recent years and the winner of last year's Gold Cup, Henry De Bromhead is back at Cheltenham to prove last year's success was no one-off.
Minella Indo will hope to join an exclusive list of back-to-back winners in the holy grail of the National Hunt, though it's another of De Bromhead's contenders, A Plus Tard, who's more fancied to finish fastest.
That was only one aspect of De Bromhead's rampant 2021 at this course, however, having also taken wins in the Champion Hurdle and Champion Chase to cement his place as a rival to the more established elite.
The Waterford-based mastermind only just lost out on the Top Trainer award in the final race of the 2021 Festival, but incumbent Mullins will be well aware of the threat posed by De Bromhead's stable of stars.
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