Steve Ryder reacts to the latest Cheltenham Festival entries with this betting preview and verdict for the Cheltenham Gold Cup 2025.
Cheltenham Gold Cup 2025
With entries now being made for the Cheltenham Festival, this ante-post segment will now be looking ahead to a specific race each week.
Oddschecker Unlimited subscribers will get exclusive analysis every week from Road to Cheltenham on the early entries, scratchings, key races and most important form lines to follow – see this week’s article here.
Cheltenham Gold Cup 2025 Preview
The Cheltenham Gold Cup is the highlight of the whole Festival for many who believe that it is the ultimate test for a staying chaser. It is run over 3m2½f on the new course and is a race that is worth looking back through the trends for.
None of the previous 20 winners were aged older than nine which would be a negative for the likes of Hewick, L’Homme Presse and Royale Pagaille should they decide to contest this at big prices.
If they were to decide to, the trends would be further against them as none of the last 24 winners have been bigger than an SP of 20/1 and only two (Al Boum Photo in 2019 at 12/1 and Lord Windermere at 20/1 in 2014) have been bigger than an SP of 8/1.
It took Willie Mullins until 2019 to win this race as a trainer but he has now won it four out of the previous six years with Henry de Bromhead winning it twice in 2021 and 2022.
The master trainer has the current favourite this year with Galopin Des Champs, who bids for a hat-trick of wins in the race, and it is a race that favourites do have a good record in with form figures of 13111. Interestingly, the only defeat for a favourite in the past five seasons was Al Boum Photo when bidding for a hat-trick in 2021.
All of the last 22 winners of the race were already Grade 1 winners which would be a negative for Monty’s Star who currently only has a Grade 3 victory over hurdles and a novice chase victory to his name at the time of writing.
The last King George VI Chase and Gold Cup double was completed by Long Run in 2011 which is worth considering if you were thinking of backing Banbridge for the race who obviously has an alternative target in the Ryanair Chase.
Cheltenham Gold Cup Tips
Galopin Des Champs will obviously prove hard to beat in this race as his record is nearly faultless going left-handed over fences in his career.
At 5/4 over two months away though I am willing to look elsewhere and I am hoping that GERRI COLOMBE (best priced at 14/1 on Unibet) can emulate Native River and A Plus Tard who both won this race the year after placing in it previously.
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The Gordon Elliott trained nine-year-old has a remarkably consistent profile with form figures of 111111112112213 in his 15-race career and although two of those defeats have come at the Cheltenham festival, he looked a big danger to Galopin Des Champs approaching the final fence last season when only beaten 3 ½ lengths at the finish.
The main concern this year is that he was well beaten on his reappearance at Down Royal and missed a hot renewal of the Savills Chase at Leopardstown at Christmas.
Whether connections decide to run him against Galopin Des Champs in the Irish Gold Cup at the Dublin Racing Festival is a question mark but I would prefer if he ran again before the festival with races like the Cotswold Chase in the UK also an option.
With the likes of Fact To File, Grey Dawning, Banbridge and Spillane’s Tower (not entered today) having the option of the Ryanair Chase instead, this race could cut up significantly and at the current odds I would prefer to back Gerri Colombe each way than Galopin Des Champs.
