Gaelic Warrior the glittering highlight of another great Cheltenham Festival

The 2026 Cheltenham Festival has come and gone, and like almost every Festival in the previous decade it was completely dominated by Willie Mullins who sent out eight winners, seven of them at Grade 1 level, writes Paul Alster.

The cherry on the icing on the top of the cake was the imperious Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup success of Gaelic Warrior. It was quite a performance! The way he despatched high quality opposition, barely coming off the bridle, was a sight to behold. Those who were uncertain he would stay the three-and-a-quarter-miles (myself included) were left in no doubt that this is a special horse. He had the speed to win the Arkle Chase a couple of seasons ago, he unluckily missed out by a whisker on the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day, but on Friday the Thirteenth he took his form to a new level with his wide-margin defeat of the classy Jango Baie, and the 2025 champion Inothewayurthinkin. Granted a clean bill of health and the avoidance of injuries, Gaelic Warrior may prove a very hard horse to beat in the coming seasons.

With other headline Group 1 successes including Lossiemouth’s rout of the opposition in the Unibet Champion Hurdle, Kargese in the Arkle Trophy, Il Etait Temps in the BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase, Kizbuhel in the Brown Advisory Novices Chase, King Rasko Grey in the Turners Novices Hurdle, and 50/1 shock winner Apolon Du Charnie in the JCB Triumph Hurdle, it was a total ‘Mullinsfest’ at the expense of most of the other major yards, the exception being that of Nicky Henderson.

Veteran trainer Henderson began the meeting with a bang when his Old Park Star landed the Supreme Novices Hurdle in fine style, then after the disappointment of seeing Lulamba beaten into third in the ‘Arkle’, he went on to land high profile handicap successes with Holloway Queen in the National Hunt Chase, and with Jingko Blue in the BetMGM Cup Handicap Hurdle – the old Coral Cup.

Overall, the eventual 15-13 margin of victory to the Irish over the British trainers in the Prestbury Cup was a far closer run thing than many people anticipated, the likes of Ben Pauling, Jamie Snowden, Jonjo & AJ O’Neil (x2), Dan Skelton (x2), Kim Bailey & Matt Nicholls, Venetia Williams, Cath Williams and John O’Shea all doing their bit for the Brits to make the final score far more respectable than has been the case in most recent renewals.

But where it really mattered, in the top Grade 1 events, the runaway Mullins machine, ably supported by Henry De Bromhead, Joseph O’Brien, Gavin Cromwell, Noel Meade and Gordon Elliott, produced the real quality performances. The stranglehold of Irish domination won’t be relinquished any time soon.

Paul Townend became the winning-most jockey in Gold Cup history when storming away up the hill on Gaelic Warrior and easily won the top jockey crown at the meeting for the umpteenth time. It is amazing how little credit he gets for being such an outstanding rider with a terrific racing brain. Yes, he is often on the best horse in the race, but he rarely finds himself out of position or misjudging the pace, and it is the lack of errors of judgement that set him apart from so many of his contemporaries.

Punters had a hard time at this Cheltenham Festival. I hold my hand up and admit that this was my worst weeks’ punting for forty years. If you weren’t backing the Mullins favourites, then finding the winners of the big handicap events, in particular, proved very challenging. The bookies had a week to remember though with plenty of hotpots biting the dust in feature races; the likes of Majborough, Bambino Fever, Jonbon, Teahupoo, and No Drama This End, ensuring the latter’s satchels – both real and virtual – were bursting with loot this time.

Something really needs to be done to sort out the shambles of the many false starts and, even more annoyingly, the uneven starts that forced so many horses and jockeys onto the back foot within two seconds of the race starting. Scores of trainers, jockeys and owners were fuming, along with many tens of thousands of punters who saw the chance of their horse wiped away by ridiculously chaotic starts time and time again. A number of betting firms have publicly expressed concerns – and with good cause – that confidence in racing is being dented by these patently unfair incidents.

It makes no sense to have horses approaching a start around a bend, especially in the big handicaps where there can be up to twenty-four runners. Surely the sensible thing to do is to lengthen the races by a half, or even a full furlong – depending on the starting point – to ensure they start in a relatively straight line and have a better chance of not being undermined by an impossible racing position off the crown of a bend from the tapes? It’s not rocket science.

The Flat season in Ireland has already begun, and we’ll being getting under orders at Doncaster before long too for the start of the British Flat season 2026, while the days are already being counted down to April 9 and the start of the Aintree Grand National Festival that culminates in ‘the world’s greatest steeplechase’ on Saturday, 11th April. There’s a whole lot of tremendous racing under both codes to look forward to as spring arrives.

Paul Alster has broadcast and reported on the British racing industry for four decades as a commentator, journalist, TV and radio presenter, betting correspondent, SP Returner, tipster and form analyst, among other things.