Cheltenham Day 1 Preview

The eagerly awaited 2021 Cheltenham Festival kicks off today with seven fantastic races featuring a vintage renewal of the Champion Hurdle at 3.05.pm

The action starts with the Supreme Novices Hurdle at 1.20pm where the Willie Mullins trained Appreciate It will bid to go one place better than last year at the Festival when runner-up to Stablemate Ferny Hollow in the Champion Bumper.

Appreciate It, the 11/10 Favourite with Betway, is so far unbeaten in 3 races over hurdles and can give Champion trainer Willie Mullins a seventh victory in the race.

Mullins could saddle the first two home as Blue Lord 9/1 shouldn’t be too far behind the hotpot at the finish. Blue Lord was given plenty to do when finishing third behind Appreciate It at Leopardstown last month and should relish the stiff uphill climb to the line today.

Betway are doing a promotion on the first race each day of the Festival. Money back as a free bet up to €10 if your horse loses in the first race on any of the four days at Cheltenham.

Race two of the afternoon had promised to be one of the spectacles of the week with Shishkin taking on Energumene but unfortunately the latter suffered a setback late last week and misses today’s contest. This leaves last season’s Supreme Novices Hurdle winner Shishkin with a relatively straightforward assignment to maintain his unbeaten chase record over fences in the Arkle Novices Chase.

Shishkin, 2/1-on with Betway, is now trading at too short a price for most ordinary punters, but while it is tempting to look for a better-priced alternative, realistically he looks too good to oppose.

The Champion Hurdle promises to be a cracker. Last year’s winner Epatante is in with a major chance of providing leading owner JP McManus with a fifth straight victory in the blue riband for hurdlers.

Epatante comes here off the back of a shock defeat at Christmas but was a good winner of this contest last year and must be in with a decent chance of a repeat.

However, this year’s opposition looks stiffer than she encountered here twelve months ago with the likes of the unbeaten mare Honeysuckle and Goshen, 4/1 with Betway, making this a mouth-watering contest.

Goshen is one of the most exciting horses in training and can gain compensation for his last flight fall in the 2020 Triumph Hurdle with victory today.

Concertista, 11/10 favourite, looks a banker for the Mullins team in the Mares Hurdle at 3.40pm. Concertista finished a close second to a stablemate in the 2019 running of the Mares Novices Hurdle at the Festival before putting the record straight with a wide margin victory in the same race last year. She comes into today’s race off the back of two easy wins over this intermediate distance and it’s very difficult to see her beat.

The concluding race of the day could well see victory for a former Gordon Elliott trained runner Galvin, 11/4 Betway. This second season Novice has been laid out for this race since finishing second in a Novices Handicap Chase at this meeting last year and the extreme distance of today’s contest will play to his strengths.

The first six races today will be broadcast live on ITV and Betway have a special offer for all customers that place bets on ITV races. If your horse finishes second you can get up to €10 as a free bet refund. This offer applies to races of 6 runners or more and your bet must be placed on a horse at odds of 1.5 or higher to qualify. Register with Betway to avail of this offer.