Jumps Season Service & Arc de Triomphe

5/10/25

Having summered well, a bit too well looking at the scales this morning, my monthly blog returns after six months with an Arc fancy and details of my Jumps Season Service for 2025/26 following a very pleasing previous season where we made another tidy profit on the Cheltenham Festival, therefore taking that part of the service up to a level stakes profit of 161 points overall.

On top of that we enjoyed some big-priced winners of big handicaps at early prices elsewhere, notably Gentleman De Mee at 33/1 for the Topham and Val Dancer at 20/1 for the Welsh Grand National. On the subject of big handicaps, I have provided Attheraces with my trends for the big 20 handicaps of the jumps season which will shortly appear on their Jumps Season microsite in addition to my own website, the first race of which is the Silver Trophy at Chepstow next weekend.

Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe

Today’s blog was uploaded on Arc morning just after 9.00 a.m. I very rarely put up any recommendations on my X profile but did so for a couple of fancies in the early autumn; Europe at 7/4 for the Ryder Cup and Sosie each-way for my favourite race on the flat, the Arc, at 16/1 before Longchamp Trials Day where he went on to finish second in the Prix Foy. Andre Fabre is chasing a ninth Arc and very much treats trials as just that so I was pleased with his run a month ago which his trainer has subsequently commented will bring him on hugely and was I particularly pleased to see Sosie drawn low in stall 3, after which he was cut to single-figure odds, so I remain hopeful. Fourth last season, I am hoping that he can become the sixteenth Arc winner that was beaten in the race the previous year (4^th as fav), especially as he still looked a work in progress a year ago who would always make into a better four-year-old (already won two Group 1s this season before the Eclipse was not run to suit) given the size of him.

As many as 21 of the last 27 Arcs have been won by horses drawn between 1-8 (and 16 of the last 23 were drawn between 1-6). Moreover, last season all horses drawn 1-7 finished in the first nine positions in a field of sixteen runners and 12 months earlier in a 15-runner contest and the best finishing position that any of the sextet drawn in double figures could manage was seventh. On that basis, I also have time for Daryz (2), Alohi Alii (4), Quisisana (7) and Cualificar (8) (Giavellotto and Leffard not so much) so some combination trifectas could be in order. Stall 1 for the favourite, Minnie Hauk, could be very good or not so good depending on how Soumillon fares from the inside draw, though he overcame that on Zarkava in a 16-runner field, which was his last Arc winner 18 years ago. The sweet spot has been between 2-6.

Jumps Season Service 2025/26

The Jumps Season Service will commence on October 24^th for an eleventh year on my website.

I thought that the new-style format worked well in its first season being more to the point on the non-Cheltenham-related content whilst extending the Cheltenham Festival Service so I will continue with that again with a couple of give-and-take content tweaks. There will be no change, however, to the four columns per week schedule which will be as follows when we are fully back into the swing:

Tuesdays: Andy Richmond’s Beating The Bias (7pm)

Thursdays: Cheltenham Festival Service (7pm)

Fridays: Weekend Race Previews (3pm)

Sundays: The Sunday Supplement (10am)

We enjoyed another good Cheltenham Festival Service showing a 12 points’ profit last season taking us up to 161 points LSP overall. My first Cheltenham column this season will be uploaded on Thursday, October 30th covering the big championship races as usual as an aperitif before a break until the Thursday following the Cheltenham November Meeting, after which the Cheltenham columns begin properly by going weekly on Thursdays, except for Christmas Day (falls on a Thursday this year) as I will cover all of the festive period in one column in early January as usual.

The Cheltenham columns will go daily for the week leading up to and including the Festival, plus updates every other day in the penultimate week before Cheltenham after the handicap weights have been published, so 30 Cheltenham columns in total. Also brought into this column last year were weekly Grand National updates at the end of the column, when relevant, so they will continue.

The Weekend Race Previews will commence on Friday, October 24th so starting by covering Cheltenham and Aintree’s first meetings of the season. As with last season, they will be more to the point and I’d argue that we had our best season (outside of Cheltenham) as a consequence. As for the first tweak, I will bring back covering the Punchestown Festival, even if it is a Mullins-Fest! This will be in the snappier style of the Weekend Race Previews rather than the more comprehensive Cheltenham Festival-style daily columns.

Under the General Sports header, the first Sunday Supplement will be uploaded on Sunday, October 26^th. In these morning columns I will look at anything else that takes my interest from top sporting events to that afternoon’s Irish racing to ante-post fancies for big horse races outside of Cheltenham to Eurovision updates. Andy Richmond will also be posting his weekly NFL thoughts. Eurovision didn’t go our way last time but we fared well with ante-post winners of the King George VI Chase (Banbridge) and both big handicaps at the Cheltenham November Meeting (Il Ridoto and Burdett Road) last season amongst others.

Andy Richmond’s weekly Beating The Bias column will restart on Tuesday, October 28^th picking out horses to follow that have caught his eye, often at a lower level than races I cover, over the previous seven days including his Live List.

Come the spring, I will update my Big Race Trends for all races at the Cheltenham and Aintree Festivals and open-to-all Blog will be uploaded monthly.

As always, I would like to thank members for your loyal and continued support down the years. As for potential new members, please drop me a message for any further details.