PERHAPS the defining numbers of Cheltenham 2025 were 10-10-8, the respective winner tallies for Willie Mullins, all other Irish trainers and British yards.

Mullins was equalling his previous best total of 10 back in 2022 and did so despite a lot going wrong, both before and during the meeting.

He had a disappointing Christmas and there was a period when both his novice hurdlers and bumper team seemed thin, yet he still managed to win three of the four novice hurdles (Triumph included), along with the Champion Bumper.

His three shortest-priced horses at the meeting were beaten, the defeats of Majborough and Galopin Des Champs particularly surprising, while State Man also fell with the Champion Hurdle at his mercy.

Among his winners, there were some impressive training feats. Jimmy De Seuil rocked up to the Coral Cup with no handicap experience and no run in 313 days, and still won impressively, while Jasmin De Vaux, who Mullins seemed so down on after the Lawlor’s of Naas, managed to jump better in his own fashion and land the Albert Bartlett.

No fluke

And then there was Poniros, part of an 11-strong team in the Triumph Hurdle, none of which was given a better than 14/1 chance in the market, who won despite never having jumped a hurdle in public beforehand. There seemed no fluke about it either, as he had the three fancied runners right behind him in a good time.

If anything, the future seems brighter again for Mullins. He has added more powerful owners this season, not least Caroline Tisdall and Bryan Drew, and the Triumph was further evidence of this.

Of his 11 runners, four had been bought publicly, all for big sums. Poniros cost 200,000 gns, Pappano the same, while Too Bossy For Us came in at 330,000 gns and Charlus made €315,000.

There is little doubt that the remaining seven cost plenty too and that is not to mention the ones that didn’t make the Triumph, something like Fred Winter runner Sony Bill costing €200,000.

Among the other Irish trainers, there were fine successes for Barry Connell and Cian Collins, the former rewarded for his steadfast faith in Marine Nationale, something many (myself included!) did not have, the latter plotting a Grand Annual course with Jazzy Matty that included a Thurles handicap hurdle run beforehand.

Training story

Gavin Cromwell was the other big Irish training story over the week, and not only for his Gold Cup win with the supplemented Inothewayurthinkin.

Prior to this year, Cromwell had taken a selective approach to Cheltenham that had been successful; between 2017 and 2024, he had six winners from 36 runners with 11 places.

Interviewed weeks before the meeting this year, he suggested he could have up on 30 runners this time alone and, in the end, he hit 26, with two of them winning and 11 placing, largely maintaining his success.

Among those 26, disappointments were hard to find, Total Look running down the field in the Fred Winter though he had excuses, and Hello Neighbour in the Triumph at a stretch, but he should continue to be a force at this fixture.

IT is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the prices for Cheltenham are accurate by the time the meeting starts; the trials have been run and broken down ad infinitum, and enough bets have been struck to bend them into shape.

But this year proved that this is not the case, as there were again some wild swings and punters were shown that there can be value at many stages of the market cycles, value defined here as beating starting price (or even better, beating Betfair starting price), though that is a loose guideline rather that a betting commandment. Many of these moves came in big races. Gordon Elliott had a disappointing week, but the market loved some of his horses, notably The Yellow Clay (BSP 3.71) and Kalypso’chance (BSP 3.7), the former shortening markedly as The New Lion (BSP 4.86) went the other way in the Turners. East India Dock (BSP 2.6) was the favourite that shortened up most from the start of the week, while the Grade 1 winner that saw the biggest move was Bob Olinger (BSP 8.88), the market calling early that he was on good terms with himself.

There were substantial moves in the handicaps too, and the money was correct in the Ultima and the Jack Richards, Myretown backed into a BSP of 8.44 and Caldwell Potter into a BSP of 9.42, both having been more than double those prices the previous day.

Not all the handicap moves were as accurate. Primoz was sent off a BSP of 7.97 in the Grand Annual, which seemed strange given he’d only won a two-runner race on his previous start, though he got little chance as a front-runner b caught out on the back wing at the start.

East India Express went off a BSP of 5.84 in the Martin Pipe in the face of the talked-up Kopeck De Mee, and ran just an okay race in seventh, perhaps paying for racing too close to the pace.

Fool’s errand

Trying to simplify these moves down to just a handful of factors feels like a fool’s errand; they are a diverse set of horses with different profiles, no more than the ones that went the other way in the betting, and the price changes were likely brought about by model-based analysis that compute 100s of factors or more.

What they do show, however, is that punters have a chance of getting value right up until late in the piece, and it is never too late to have a good bet at Cheltenham.

THE notable performances at Cheltenham have been well covered off by now. Fact To File stood out to me, along with just about everyone else, though I would be thinking down rather than up in trip with him given the speed he showed in the Ryanair, while Gordon Elliott’s idea that Wodhooh could be supplemented into the Mares’ Hurdle did not look fanciful after her Martin Pipe win.

I also thought that Bambino Fever did very well to win a steadily run Champion Bumper, showing versatility in terms of ground and pace, her previous wins coming in more stamina testing races.

Three less obvious ones also took the eye. Martin Pipe third Raglan Road was about my eye-catcher of the week. Seemingly the least fancied of the four J.P. McManus runners, he did best of them, despite plenty going wrong.

Poor position

Travelling well down the hill, he got caught behind first Karafon and then Kopeck De Mee as they came back through the field, finding himself in a poor position turning in before coming home strongly up the unfavoured middle of the track, with nothing to bring him into the race.

This was just his second start of the season, and he might improve again for it, particularly if granted slower ground, with the big handicap hurdle over two-and-a-half miles on the final day of Punchestown looking a good target.

Rocky’s Diamond was beaten a fair way in fourth in the Stayers’ Hurdle, but it was still an excellent effort for a five-year-old, that age group tending to struggle in races like this, while pushing the pace on mid-race was not ideal, nor was coming up the middle of the track. His hurdling has gotten better too.

Path d’Oroux finished down the field in the Plate, but he found himself on the back foot early after making mistakes, before doing a lot of running to get involved, especially from three out to the second last, where another mistake ended his chance.

He finds it hard to win, but a drop back in trip might help and he’s one to be interested in each-way or place only.