No sooner had Lossiemouth lifted the roof off Cheltenham with a staggeringly dominant Champion Hurdle victory than the skies around Prestbury Park also began to brighten too. The buildup to the festival had been dominated by talk of civil war, of feuding and internecine conflict. But this was a reminder of the sport’s simple pleasures. Horse and jockey. Fence and turf. Drama and thrills for the ages.
This was a day that jump racing needed. The opening day attendance of 57,242 was the highest for three years. It made Cheltenham feel like a place to be while not bursting at the seams, a balancing act it has not always managed. Most important of all, the racing was competitive and the stars came out to play.
And there was no bigger star on day one than Lossiemouth. Some had suggested that she had missed her moment, having raced in the easier mares’ hurdle in 2024 and 2025. But on the biggest stage, how she delivered – and then some – as she tracked Brighterdaysahead before bounding clear to win by six and a half lengths.
That wisest of alchemists, Willie Mullins, who had worked his magic on Lossiemouth after a poor run in the Dublin Racing festival by installing cheekpieces, was in no doubt of her achievement – her fourth victory in a row here. “She is a star mare,” he said. “To come back four years on the trot, never mind win, that puts her in a league of her own.”
Lossiemouth was far from the only star on display. The day started with Constitution Hill being given a rousing sendoff when he was paraded before the first. His trainer, Nicky Henderson, was lauded and applauded soon after as Old Park Star stayed up the hill to pass Sober Glory to take the opener.
That was a great start to the festival. But an even better race followed in the Arkle, as Kargese held off the more-fancied duo of Kopek des Bordes and Lulamba, in a three-way struggle to the line.
Of course, one day won’t change everything. Racing knows that while spectators are going up, many key numbers are spiralling the wrong way. Betting revenue is declining. The eye-watering costs of the sport are rising. The foal crop is falling. And only last week Lord Allen departed as British Horseracing Authority chair after a disastrous six months in charge.
Racing’s stakeholders at least agree on all that. But not much else. One insider said that, for now, the civil war was being put on hold, but with all the big players at Cheltenham talks would be taking place.
“The big festivals always bring everyone together to celebrate the sport and the internal politics is forgotten for a few days,” they said. “Across the four days, there will be conversations about bringing the sport more together, but whether we get anywhere is another matter.
“Everyone agrees on what the challenges are – and while the sport is growing, it is not growing at the speed of the costs of owning and training horses,” they said. “The problem is we are arguing about how to divide the pie, when we should be talking about how to grow the pie.”
On one side of the fence sits the Jockey Club and the bigger independent courses, including Cheltenham, Ascot and Aintree, believe that the sport’s current model of having four or five fixtures a day, often watched by one man and his dog, is unsustainable.
But Arena Racing Company, which runs 45% of British races, takes a very different view. And because it owns 16 racecourses it has more voting clout when the issues are debated at the Racehorse Association.
Meanwhile, one man who seemed to be enjoying this day more than most was the legendary better JP McManus, who celebrated his 75th birthday by seeing his horse Saratoga came in at 10-1 in the Juvenile Handicap Hurdle before Jonnywho followed up at 18-1 in the Ultima.
It was back in 1976 that the British public was introduced to McManus’s exploits through the eyes of the Observer’s legendary sportswriter, Hugh McIlvanney, who regaled his readers with how McManus – the “Sundance Kid” – had walked into a Cheltenham betting shop “carrying a duffle bag which he spilled £6,000 in readies to back Brown Lad in the Gold Cup” – before topping it up with another £4,000.
On that day McManus was wearing a fawn hat that McIlvanney reckoned would “not have looked out of place on the head of Alexander Solzhenitsyn”. But he also noticed that: “Under the rim of fur, the eyes were a clear and steady blue, the young face serious except for those moments when the ironies of his profession sent a hint of a smile across it.”
Fifty years on the hat is gone, and the hair is a bit thinner. But the Sundance Kid still has bookies scrambling for cover.
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