A two-time Cheltenham Festival winner heads the betting for 2025 despite missing out this time around.
Jamie Radford looks at the five most popular bets for Cheltenham 2025 through oddschecker in the week since the 2024 Festival finished.
Constitution Hill – 56% of Champion Hurdle Bets
Despite failing to show up this year to defend his crown, Constitution Hill is the most popular ante-post bet for next year’s Festival.
Indeed, the prized possession of Seven Barrows has taken 56% of Champion Hurdle 2025 bets. Although State Man wrote his name on the race’s winners list, he didn’t look like a superstar, grinding out a 1¼ length victory from Irish Point, a horse running over an inadequate trip.
Although he may face increased competition from mare Lossiemouth, and perhaps even Gallagher winner Ballyburn, it does seem that the crown is there to be reclaimed by Constitution Hill. Moreover, it’s not as if he has been beaten or dethroned with unsatisfactory blood tests the reason for his absentee.
With connections looking ahead to Punchestown next month, it would be no surprise for more bets to flood in should he confirm his superiority to State Man there.
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William Munny – 36% of Supreme Bets
After William Munny’s second win at Naas in late February, owner and trainer Barry Connell said the following:
“William Munny will not be going to Cheltenham, I am going to bring him to Punchestown for the champion bumper and he is the one they will all have to beat. In my opinion he is the best bumper horse in the country.”
Comments like these are not unusual from Mr Connell who claimed he had never had a horse like Marine Nationale and that he was “the best horse in the race”.
When Michael O’Sullivan drove him up the hill in front in the 2023 Festival opener, many people thought they should have listened more. It seems like they now have with William Munny taking 36% of the bets on the Supreme Novices' Hurdle 2025.
Nevertheless, even if Marine Nationale is the best bumper horse in the country, there will be plenty in the division next year who either won’t have developed yet or will have skipped a bumper career in England or Ireland.
Indeed, in the last 10 years, no winner of the Punchestown Champion Bumper has gone on to win the Supreme with the only winner to have even run in the race being Altior who finished a well beaten 6th in 2015.
Gerri Colombe – 33% of Gold Cup Bets
Gerri Colombe has faced Galopin Des Champs twice. He has lost twice. Yet, it is the Robcour star that is taking the most bets for the Cheltenham Gold Cup 2025 with a 33% share.
It is not even that the horses have an age gap either with them both being eight-year-olds, and so nine at next year’s Gold Cup. Defending a Gold Cup crown is an incredibly difficult task but emulating Best Mate to win three in a row, that’s near impossible.
Perhaps this is the angle that punters have taken; Galopin Des Champs has usurped more of his constitution as a horse and will be worn down by next year’s renewal.
There is no doubt that Gerri Colombe ran fantastically too. Not only did he close the gap from Leopardstown from 23 lengths to 3 ½ lengths but he was impeded by the lose horse and was galloping all the way to the line. Even softer ground will help the son of Saddler Maker and it does seem likely that if Galopin Des Champs slips up he will be there to capitalise.
Another thing to note is that whilst Galopin Des Champ is available at around the 9/4 or 3/1 mark, Gerri Colombe was as big as 25/1 (now 20/1 best) for the race. The each-way value seems enormous on a horse who has never finished outside the top two.
Galopin Des Champs – 25% of Gold Cup Bets
Moving onto the aforementioned Champion who bids to emulate Henrietta Knight’s Best Mate to win three Gold Cups in a row. Recently we have seen how the Gold Cup can almost destroy horses. Indeed, the Cheltenham Gold Cup is an immensely hard race in which horses have to go beyond their constitution to win or go close to winning.
As such horses are rarely the same ever again. Coneygree won the race as a novice, and disregarding a three-runner listed race in which he was 1/4f, he never won again.
Native River did win three small field Grade 2’s but never won a Grade 1 again and Minella Indo’s record is two wins from nine since Gold Cup glory with both wins coming in five-runner Grade 3’s, while A Plus Tard bombed out in his next three and was then retired.
Galopin Des Champs bucked all the trends. He not only defended his Gold Cup crown but he also won the Savills and the Irish Gold Cup along the way. One thing that must be noted is that he jumped economically last Friday.
Race IQ date showed that gained over eight lengths on Gerri Colombe throughout the race. When one accounts that he only finished 3 ½ lengths in front of him, it is not hard to envisage that a sloppier round of jumping could turn the tables.
Nevertheless, he will still only be nine next year and he seems to reserve many of his best performances for Prestbury Park. He has taken 25% of bets for the race.
Lossiemouth – 24% of Champion Hurdle Bets
After Constitution Hill was ruled out of this year’s Champion Hurdle, a discussion was had over rerouting Rich Ricci’s star mare. Yet, with Willie Mullins’s the leading interlocutor in that debate, the discussion was likely brief and succinct.
Yet, after winning the Mares’ Hurdle with ease and proving doubters wrong over her stamina reserves, she has little more to prove in a division which has unearthed three Champion Hurdle winners in recent years in Honeysuckle, Epatante and Annie Power.
A large reason for this is their receival of 7lbs from the geldings and that concession will be a major pull for Rich Ricci to roll the dice in a bid to win the race a third time. Whereas Constitution Hill is 13/8, Lossiemouth is 4/1 and therefore, similar to Gerri Colombe, is a more attractive proposition for each-way multiples.
Now three out of three at Prestbury Park with two Festival wins, she will be a worthy opponent for the defending champion State Man as well as for the returning one Constitution Hill. She takes 24% of bets for next year’s Champion Hurdle.
