Cheltenham Festival 2026 on The Race Lab

Heart Wood Wins the Ryanair Chase: De Bromhead's Quiet Cheltenham Dominance

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 17:00:00 +0000

Heart Wood won the 2026 Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham this afternoon, giving Henry de Bromhead his first winner of this year’s Festival. Jonbon, stepping up from two miles, couldn’t land the blow, and the absence of last year’s winner Fact To File — withdrawn on the morning of the race — reshaped the whole contest.

It was a result most people didn’t see coming. But if you’d been tracking de Bromhead’s record in this specific race, you might have.

Il Etait Temps Wins the Champion Chase: Four Festival Runs, One Fall, and Finally a Cheltenham Winner

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 17:00:00 +0000

Il Etait Temps won the Queen Mother Champion Chase this afternoon, beating Libberty Hunter under Paul Townend. The eight-year-old nearly threw it away with a mistake at the last fence, but held on to give Willie Mullins a third winner of the day.

The headline result is compelling enough. What makes it extraordinary is everything that came before it.

Three Festivals, No Cigar

Before today, Il Etait Temps had run at the Cheltenham Festival three times. He’d never won.

Lossiemouth Makes It Six From Eleven: The Champion Hurdle Has Become a Mares' Race

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 17:00:00 +0000

Lossiemouth bolted up in the Champion Hurdle this afternoon, beating Brighterdaysahead by six and a half lengths under Paul Townend. A proper demolition job that extended her perfect Cheltenham record to five wins from five starts.

But the bigger story isn’t about one horse. It’s about what’s happened to the Champion Hurdle over the past decade.

The Numbers Are Stark

We pulled every Champion Hurdle result since 2003 from our database. In the first 13 runnings (2003-2015), zero mares won. Not one. A handful ran, none troubled the judge.

Sean Bowen's Festival Hoodoo: 52 Rides, Zero Winners, and the Numbers Behind Racing's Great Anomaly

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 17:00:00 +0000

Sean Bowen heads to the Cheltenham Festival tomorrow as champion jockey. He’s ridden 1,252 career winners. He’s banging in winners at a 23% clip this season — 212 from 911 rides. He’s won Grade 1s at Aintree, Sandown, and beyond.

And yet from 52 rides at the Cheltenham Festival, he has precisely zero winners.

The Numbers Don’t Make Sense

We pulled Bowen’s complete Festival record from our database, and it makes for painful reading. Here’s every year since his first ride in 2015:

Marine Nationale's Exit Hands Majborough a Poisoned Chalice

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:00:00 +0000

Marine Nationale won’t defend his Champion Chase crown. A sore neck, picked up overnight, means Barry Connell’s nine-year-old misses next Wednesday’s showpiece, and the horse who demolished Jonbon by 18 lengths last March won’t get the chance to do it again.

That leaves Majborough. Willie Mullins’ second-season chaser is now 8/11 with most firms, having strolled to a 19-length win in the Dublin Chase five weeks ago. On the face of it, that looks like a formality.