The 2023 Cheltenham Festival is returned and is started, marking the beginning of the largest week in racing. The Gloucestershire town has welcomed some of the best horses, riders, and trainers in the world for four days of action-packed racing, and fans have not been dissatisfied thus far.
The Supreme Novices’ Hurdle served as the Festival’s first event, and Marine Nationale won it. To the satisfaction of trainer Nicky Henderson, Constitution Hill won the day’s highlight race, the Champion Hurdle, after convincingly leading the betting.
It is really incredible, he stated afterward. He truly is amazing. You’re constantly concerned that anything might go wrong. The strain was on him because he hadn’t run since Christmas. Well, what a day. What an unbeliavable opening day. And you can re-cap it all on our website.
What’s your highlight? Constitution Hill, Honeysuckle, even that storming finale from Gaillard du Mesnil. The day belongs to so many.
And that’s before I mention Marine Nationale, Jazzy Matty, El Fabiolo, and new Grand National favourite Corach Rambler.
The action gets underway tomorrow at 1.30pm with the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle. But the main event will see reigning champion Energueme try and defend the Queen Mother Champion Chase..
Once again we’ll have live updates here from start to finish. But for now, to all our followers today…………….It’s that time of day now. The stragglers remain, spending whatever winnings they’ve made and drinking whatever is left in the pumps. They reckon 220,000 pints of Guinness will be sank this week – just the 55,000 per day then.
But the majority are heading back to the town, albeit if they’re stuck in bus queues.
They’ve had their money’s worth of action today that is for sure. As for the landlords and bar tenders in Cheltenham tonight……well, good luck guys. Good luck.
