16th March 2011
Al Ferof gets us off to a flyer!
As you could see from yesterday's television pictures I was over the moon to begin the meeting with a winner. It was wonderful for all of us connected with Al Ferof especially his owner John Hales and I was genuinely delighted for Ruby Walsh receiving his just reward for all the hard work that he has put in to be back riding at Cheltenham. For Ruby to then go on and record a treble on the day with two others for Willie Mullins including Hurricane Fly in The Champion Hurdle was even more remarkable. A victory in the very first race takes the pressure off for the rest of the week and we have plenty of ammunition left for the next three days.
16th March 2011
Day 2 - Cheltenham 2011 Wednesday - Champion Chase Day
Following our early success with Al Ferof yesterday, we will be trying our best to follow up with at least another success on day two of The 2011 Cheltenham Festival. Wednesday's card kicks off with the four mile National Hunt Chase for the amateur riders. We then move on to three more Grade 1 contests in the shape of The Neptune Investment Management Novices' Hurdle, The RSA Novices Chase over three miles and then the feature sportingbet.com Queen Mother Champion Chase for the top two mile chasers. Next come two Grade 3 races, The Coral Cup for the older handicappers and then the Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle for the four year olds. Finally, we have The Weatherbys Champion Bumper, a National Hunt Flat Race which in recent years has thrown up some impressive winners. We have plenty of runners competing today and I will be providing a full run down and appraisal of my Cheltenham runners daily in my Racing Column exclusive to Betfair www.betfair.com/paulnicholls