Jumps Season 'Specials' Markets

4/2/26

Well done to all concerned to get both days of the Dublin Racing Festival on which as usual had a big effect on the Cheltenham Festival markets, though in this season’s case making certain races at Prestbury Park look far more open rather than the other way round, which is much welcomed.

Such were the results that we have no odds-on favourites for March at all at this stage whereas we usually have a number of standout strong favourites after the DRF. It wasn’t too far back that we even had seven odds-on favourites at one Cheltenham and that kind of uncompetitiveness was partly why some race fans were falling out of love with the Festival. This season is set to be very different and I am sure that that be will borne out by increased attendances over the four days.

At this point I am usually starting to scramble around looking for bookmakers offering ‘Without The Favourite’ markets in some ante-post races but there really is no need for that this season at the moment.

I still like to look at the Specials markets though and, whilst Mullins is unopposable at 1/8 to be Leading Cheltenham Festival Trainer, there are grounds for taking Paul Townend on at 10/11 in the Top Cheltenham Jockey market as the Closutton winners will be properly shared about this season looking at the strength of the green and gold. The same applies to the Elliott winners so Jack Kennedy looks tight enough at 5/1. Harry Cobden is massively dividing opinion as Paddy Power go 20/1 compared to William Hill's 15/2. I'd say that four of the Hendo big names have to win for Nico de Boinville to emerge on top at a top offer of 12/1 so no thank you to that.

Mark Walsh, on the other hand, has a real point to prove at the moment as we saw with four Grade 1 wins at the DRF and he’ll be on board five of Mullins’ biggest guns rather than Townend in Majborough, Fact To File, Narciso Has, Dinoblue and Kaid D’Authie. Moreover, I don’t think the stable are as strong in the novice hurdles as usual this season where Townend virtually always chooses the right one.

As we know J P McManus will also have big chances in most of the handicaps where he will be multiple-handed so I’d say that 7/2 with William Hill is fair enough about Walsh being Top Cheltenham Festival Jockey in his final season as retained rider to J P McManus in Ireland.

Onto the Irish scene and, with Willie Mullins not as dominant at this season’s Dublin Racing Festival as in the past bagging just the five Grade 1 races including a 1-2-3 in the Irish Gold Cup (utter disgrace job) combined with Gordon Elliott attacking the meeting with more vigour this year with five winners including two Grade 1s and the valuable 2m handicap hurdle, although Mullins has taken a big chunk out of Elliott’s lead heading into last weekend, it’s not as much as usual so it’s still very much game on as far as the Irish Jumps Trainers’ Championship is concerned.

As much as I like Willie, I will be cheering for Gordon who has been playing the Richard Johnson role to A P McCoy for many years. Barring injury, we always knew that Johnson would be Champion Jockey one day after McCoy retired (in fact it was four times) but that’s no gimme for Elliott for whenever Mullins says enough is enough, which is a long way off yet, as it would appear that Patrick will be waiting in the wings to inherit his owner base. So, is this it? Will the 2025/26 season be the best chance that Elliott will ever have? Paddy Power go 1/3 Mullins and 2/1 Elliott.

Although his lead has been cut significantly by almost half in the last month, Elliott will still feel that he has a fighting chance with an advantage of around €470,000. Therefore, could this mean a concerted effort to keep more of his horses at home so sending less handicappers to Cheltenham and certainly less Grade 1 horses to Aintree? More horses being kept back for the Irish Grand National with over €450,00 in total prize money looks a given.

Deep down, I’d bet that Elliott would love to keep Romeo Coolio back for the WillowWarm Gold Cup but his Cheltenham-obsessed owners won’t be having any of that judged on their comments after he won the Irish Arkle. There is a sufficient time gap to run in both races, though, which makes me think that he is more likely to run in the Arkle rather than endure a harder race over 1m1f longer in the Brown Advisory to recover from, which is being contested over an additional half a furlong this season just in case that passed you by so 3m1f.

Where Mullins has a big edge is the amount of times that he is going to saddle 1-2s and 1-2-3s in the Grade 1s back home in the final three months of the season, clocking up masses of very good place money in addition to the winning pots so Elliott has to try and stop that as much as he can.

The Randox Grand National entries were released yesterday and just 78 names went forward on Tuesday (from 90 last year and 107 four years ago). Iroko is a top-priced 7/1 favourite to become just the second British-trained winner in eight runnings. The home team are responsible for 30 entries.

Part of the reason for the drop off in numbers is down to some connections just being realistic about getting a run since the field size was cut from 40 to 34 two years ago. For example. Joe Tizzard wants to run the 139-rated Rock My Way but simply didn’t bother entering him just to get balloted out whereas is in the past it would have been an automatic entry. Now you need probably a 145-rated horse to squeeze in. Aurora’s Encore was only rated 137 when he won in 2013 and it’s basically now the Gold Cup Handicap.

Willie Mullins has won the last two editions which included the 1-2-3-5-7 last season and has entered 15. Gordon Elliott has 12 entries. He entered 26 the last time that it was a 40-runner race. Paul Nicholls had five runners last season but, incredibly, the x14 champion trainer does not have one suitable horse this season so has no entries whatsoever.

The weights will be published on February 17^th to much fanfare but you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be no surprises as say-it-as-you-see-it Martin Greenwood will just allocate a weight in line with horses’ official handicap ratings. Phil Smith, on the other hand, used to make great play of burning the midnight oil to come up with his weights.