CHELTENHAM BALANCE: THE POWER OF WILLIE MULLINS AND JP MCMANUS

As always, once the curtain has come down on the races, we move on to the balance sheets and the Cheltenham Festival is no exception. Apart from the big surprises on the track, which in more than a few cases made the bookmakers‘ fortunes, there were also some important confirmations, first and foremost that of Willie Mullins who dominated the trainers’ table with 10 victories against the two each obtained by Gavin Cromwell, Nicky Henderson and Henry de Bromhead.

The other great Cheltenham gentleman was Jp Mc Manus who, as well as being the owner of Gold Cup winner Inothewayurthinkin, won another 5 races. Among the jockeys, on the other hand, Paul Townend and Mark Walsh finished level on 4 wins each, with Townend doing better as he also had a second place to his name.

The organisers are a little concerned about the drop in the number of spectators, which during the four days of the meeting totalled just under 200 thousand. Compared to the record edition of 2022, there has been a drop of about 30% (there were 280 thousand). The least popular day was Wednesday (42 thousand visitors) while the most popular was obviously the last one, Friday with 68 thousand spectators.