The nine handicaps at the Cheltenham Festival later this month may offer some hope for British stables to recover their shattered pride, after Martin Greenwood, Britain’s senior jumps handicapper, said on Tuesday his team is doing what it can to ensure the home team’s horses arrive at the meeting on competitive marks.
Irish-trained runners finished 7-2 in front in the Festival’s handicaps last year, when Ireland had a record 23 winners from 28 races, despite fielding only a third of the runners in what are, in theory at least, the meeting’s most competitive events. The three previous seasons saw a 5-5 draw in the handicaps – one was dropped from the programme in 2021 – and a similar return at this year’s Festival, which opens on 15 March, would be a significant step forward.
