Henderson Breathing Rarefied Air

For the last four years Willie Mullins has been the leading trainer at the Cheltenham Festival but Gordon Elliott and Nicky Henderson stole an early march on the Irish champion with five winners between them on the opening day of the meeting. While Elliott was responsible for a trio of those wins, Tuesday very much belonged to Henderson, who increased his tally as the most successful trainer at the Festival to 57––11 ahead of Mullins.

Thirty-two years after the famously fragile See You Then (GB) (Royal Palace {GB}) won the first of three consecutive Champion Hurdles for the Lambourn trainer, Henderson returned to the Prestbury Park winner's enclosure with a record sixth victory in the race courtesy of Buveur d'Air (Fr) (Crillon {Fr}), who led home his stablemate My Tent Or Yours (Ire) (Desert Prince {Fr}), the latter settling for the bridesmaid role for the third consecutive year.

“You feel sorry for My Tent Or Yours,” said the trainer. “It's wonderful––we have won the Champion Hurdle––but that is now three Champion Hurdles he has been second in as well as a Supreme Novices' Hurdle. What else can you say about a horse who has done that again and again? He has been sensational. But the youngster has got home, and that is great.”

Both Buveur d'Air––who has also won twice over fences this season––and My Tent Or Yours are owned by one of jump racing's biggest patrons, JP McManus, who was also enjoying his sixth victory in the Champion Hurdle, the first three having come his way courtesy of the legendary Aidan O'Brien-trained Istabraq (Ire) (Sadler's Wells).

“Nicky insisted that Buveur d'Air went back to hurdling and in the end I let him have his way,” admitted McManus, who also owns the race favourite, Yanworth (GB) (Norse Dancer {GB}), who faded into a disappointing seventh after starting to struggle at the third-last.

Earlier, one of the bankers of the meeting, Altior (Ire) (High Chaparral {Ire}), stuck resolutely to the script and can now be regarded as one of the most thrilling novice chasers around following his six-length victory in the G1 Racing Post Arkle Trophy. Unbeaten in ten starts over obstacles, the 7-year-old had led home Buveur d'Air in last year's G1 Sky Bet Supreme Novices' Hurdle, the pair separated only by the high-class Min (Fr) (Walk In The Park {Ire}), who is currently sidelined through injury.

Altior provided not just the icing on the cake of a super day for Henderson but yet another chance for Nico de Boinville to shine at the Festival two years after he won the G1 Cheltenham Gold Cup on Coneygree (GB) (Karinga Bay {GB}), a triumph followed no less emotionally by the dramatic return of Sprinter Sacre (Fr) (Network {Ger]) in last year's G1 Queen Mother Champion Chase. De Boinville, a key member of the Henderson team who rides Altior at home every day, just as he did Sprinter Sacre, is as modest as he is talented.

“You try to keep as cool as much as you can, but you are aware of the expectation for a wonderful horse,” he said of the 1-4 favourite. “It took me a while to get him into gear, but once he did he took off up the hill.

“My horse travels and jumps and wherever you put him he's a great horse to ride. Once Altior gets into gear he's hard to stop––when he's gone through the gears he just takes off.”

Tuesday was certainly a day when it paid to take note of previous Cheltenham form. Un Temps Pour Tout (Ire) (Robin Des Champs {Fr}), bought as a 4-year-old for £450,000 at the DBS Hennessy Sale of 2013, has only just passed that mark in his lifetime earnings from eight victories in 26 starts, but he has given owners Caroline Tisdall and Bryan Drew a great run for their money. The 8-year-old David Pipe trainee has now run at the last three Festivals, winning back-to-back editions of the G3 Ultima Handicap Chase.

The opening day also marked a second Cheltenham success for Tiger Roll (Ire) (Authorized {Ire}). Trained by Gordon Elliott for Michael O'Leary's Gigginstown House Stud, the 7-year-old first came to prominence as a juvenile when winning the G1 JCB Triumph Hurdle, and he was back for more in the four-mile National Hunt Challenge Cup under first-time Festival rider Lisa O'Neill. The race for amateurs was named in honour of the stand-out amateur rider of the modern era, JT McNamara, who suffered paralysis from a fall at Cheltenham in 2013 and died last July.

In a theme which is certain to continue for years to come, Tiger Roll was not the only winner on the card sired by a son of Montjeu (Ire). Notching his first Festival winner was the Jean-Luc Lagardere-bred G1 Grand Prix de Paris hero Montmartre (Fr).

His wayward son Labaik (Fr) sprung the biggest surprise of the meeting so far, not only by winning the G1 Sky Bet Supreme Novices' Hurdle but by consenting to race in the first place. The 25/1 shot, who previously raced on the Flat for John Hammond in the colours of Sheikh Hamdan, has refused to participate on four of his last eight racecourse appearances. Between these bouts of petulance, he won not only a Grade 3 hurdle at Navan but also a leg of the Corinthian Challenge at Leopardstown in October. His jockey that day was none other than keen amateur Sheikh Fahad Al Thani, and the sheikh's thrill in snaring a leg of the series he devised will have been matched by that of Labaik's most recent jockey, Jack Kennedy, the former pony racing champion who, at the tender age of 17, now has his name on the Cheltenham roll of honour.

The Elliott-trained hat-trick was completed by Apple's Jade (Fr) (Saddler Maker {Ire}), who also gave Michael O'Leary a double on the day when winning the G1 OLBG Mares' Hurdle. Her victory will have been extra hard for Willie Mullins to swallow as not only did she run down his duo of Vroum Vroum Mag (Fr) (Voix du Nord {Fr}) and Limini (Ire) (Peintre Celebre), who had to settle for the minor honours, but the 5-year-old winner had been in his care until the removal of all Gigginstown House Stud horses from his stable at the beginning of the current season.

The Festival is very much a marathon, not a sprint, however, and Mullins has some pretty potent charges to unleash in the coming days, not least odds-on favourite Douvan (Fr) (Walk In The Park {Ire}) in today's feature race, the G1 Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase.

Buveur Breeder Takes Long Road To Festival Glory

By Emmanuel Roussel

“I had to do most of it the wrong way around,” says Gérard Ferté, a farmer in Cher county in France and the proud breeder of 6-year-old AQPS Buveur d'Air (Fr) (Crillon {Fr}), winner of the 2017 G1 Stan James Champion Hurdle.

While many AQPS horses originate from sport-horse mares being bred to thoroughbred stallions, the pedigree of the Champion Hurdler reflects the opposite approach, as Ferté explains.

“I go hunting quite a lot and [Buveur d'Air's third dam] Keen Dancer had been a great cross-country mare back in the 60s when I bought her. She was a thoroughbred but I wanted to breed jumpers so I mated her to a half-bred sire and got Lili Dancer (Fr), the second dam of Buveur d'Air and Punchestowns (Fr) (Morespeed {GB}), who was also a Grade 1 performer at the Festival with Nicky Henderson. But Lili Dancer became famous in France long before that. She was the French cross-country champion of 1985 and the dam of Fujiyama (Fr), twice a winner of the Grand Steeple de Craon.”

In other words, the nephew of a great French cross-country chaser won the fastest hurdle race of Great Britain.

“That's a journalist's shortcut,” he says. “My horses are great jumpers too. But it's always great to be here.”

Ferté was at Cheltenham on Tuesday with his son Hubert, manager of a private school in London, but he credits his wife Odile for their major success. “I was taking care of the matings but she was in charge of the horses on a day-to-day basis while I was working at the farm. She couldn't make it to the races today but she's seen it all on TV back at home.”

Nicky Henderson is not new to converting French imports to British ways of jumping, and he's won a record six Champion Hurdle races at the Festival now, but he still thought Buveur d'Air was a nice chasing prospect after he finished third in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle (Gr1) last year behind baby goliaths Altior and Min.

As his heritage suggests, Buveur d'Air has indeed won both his novice chases this season, but the trainer decided it would be wiser to aim him back to the Champion Hurdle and his charge proved him right.

Eight years passed between the births of Punchestowns and Buveur d'Air and in many ways the latest success is bittersweet as their dam, History (Fr) (Alesso {Fr}), died along with her Coastal Path (GB) foal earlier this year.

Even though one of the greatest AQPS mares ever, Vroum Vroum Mag, had to settle for second in the G1 OLBG Mares' Hurdle, it was still a great success for French jumps breeders since the thoroughbred winner, Apple's Jade, is by Saddler Maker, who was based in the heart of AQPS land, the Haras de Cercy in Burgundy, until his untimely death. Meanwhile, third-placed Limini (Ire) (Peintre Celebre) started her career in France under the care of Chantilly-based Nicolas Clément.

It was also a great day for Pierre Boulard since the French bloodstock agent spotted the first three in the OLBG Mares' Hurdle, while the first two home in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle, Labaik and Melon (GB) (Medicean {GB}), are both Arqana graduates.