Steve Ryder has two ante-post tips off the back of today’s handicap entries for Cheltenham.
Ultima Handicap Chase
Several changes have been made to the qualifying criteria in the handicaps for the Cheltenham Festival this year with the aim of making them more competitive.
Entries have been made today and the weights will be published next week on the 25th February. Qualifying runs have to have been run by Sunday 23rd February with many handicaps now requiring more runs with an aim of the handicapper having a better idea of a horses ability.
In the non-novice handicap chases such as the Ultima Handicap Chase, Cross Country Handicap Chase, Grand Annual Handicap Chase, Plate Handicap Chase and Kim Muir Handicap Chase require entries to have had four chase runs.
In both the National Hunt Chase and Novices’ Handicap Chase then entries will only have to have had three runs over fences but the former has extra conditions such as finishing in top 4 over 2m7½f+ chase, having at least one chase start this season and it has a rating ceiling of 145. The Kim Muir also has the same rating ceiling of 145.
In the handicap hurdles such as Coral Cup, Pertemps, County Hurdle and Martin Pipe then entries have to have had five runs over hurdles to qualify. The Martin Pipe has a rating ceiling of 145 and the Boodles is a four-year-old only juvenile hurdle where horses have to have run over hurdles three times.
Cheltenham Festival Entries Today
Today, we had the entries for the following handicaps at the 2025 Cheltenham Festival. The weights will be revealed for each of these races this time next week (Tuesday 25th February).
You can follow Jake Price Racing on Twitter/X for updates including this tweet on horses who were short in the relative handicap odds markets but not entered today.
- Ultima Handicap Chase
- Coral Cup
- Fred Winter Juvenile Hurdle
- Pertemps Network Final
- TrustATrader Plate
- Kim Muir Challenge Cup
- County Hurdle
- Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys Hurdle
- Grand Annual Chase
- Cross Country Chase
- Novices Handicap Chase
- National Hunt Chase
Ante-Post Tips for the Cheltenham Festival Handicaps
Irish trained horses have dominated the Cheltenham festival in recent years but the Ultima Handicap Chase is one race that the UK trainers have a good record in with Irish trained horses 0-46 in the race since 2006. One horse who hits a lot of recent trends for the race is Broadway Boy (best priced 16/1).
10 of the previous 12 winners have been rated between 139 and 151 and he is rated 150, all winners this century had recorded their best RPR over at least 3 miles and he did in the Coral Gold Cup this season over 3m2f which is a race that five of the last 11 winners had run in.
Nine of the previous 12 winners were no older than eight so he hits the age trend being only seven and seven of the last 10 winners had all run at Cheltenham so far that season.
Broadway Boy missed the festival last season through injury but ran well at Cheltenham on his reappearance to finish 3rd off a mark of 149 before finishing 2nd in the Coral Gold Cup off a mark of 148. He was disappointing last time at Cheltenham on New Year’s Day but has been freshened up since and he looks a big price for a horse with superb form at the track.
Plate Handicap Chase
The re-introduction of the Novices’ Handicap Chase at the Festival will have a direct influence of the shape of the Plate Handicap Chase as it is much less likely to have unexposed, lightly raced runners than the past few seasons. Therefore, I am willing to take a chance on a veteran FUGITIF (best priced at 16/1) who is a model of consistency in Cheltenham handicaps.
The last four renewals have been won by veterans with Coole Cody at 11 in 2022, Seddon at 10 in 2023 and Shakem Up’Arry at 10 last year so at the age of 10, the Richard Hobson trained gelding cannot be discounted.
His form figures at Cheltenham read 222413P53 with his only disappointing effort coming in the Grade 1 Ryanair Chase last season when rated too high for a handicap off a mark of 157. He finished 2nd in this race two seasons ago off a mark of 149 and then won over this course and distance in the December Gold Cup last season off a mark of 151.
Fugitif has so far this season finished 5th in the Paddy Power Gold Cup off a mark of 152 and 3rd in the December Gold Cup off a mark of 150 and he now races off a mark of 148 having finished 6th in the Grade 2 Denman Chase at Newbury last time.
That means he now hits the rating trend that the previous 11 winners were rated between 140 and 149 and that 19 of the last 21 had raced within the previous 77 days. This will have no doubt been his target all season and he looks sure to be involved in the finish.
