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We enter the final day of the Festival, and hasn't it gone quickly? The first race to kickstart Gold Cup day is the JCB Triumph Hurdle Grade 1 which is the pinnacle for the Juvenile hurdlers.
Juvenile races are often tough to get right. I've mentioned it a lot over the past two years since I started here that form can often go out the window with 4-year-olds and shocks do happen as they are inexperienced horses who find a spurt of improvement out of nowhere. They aren't mature so their bodies are still physically progressing and they are still getting used to the jumps, for most of them.
The Irish have won the last three renewals, and four of the last five, so it probably will pay to be with the Irish, which seems like a recurring theme for this week.
Cheltenham 1:30 – Blood Destiny 15/8 (1pt)
I think this is a really tricky race, even though there are a couple at the top of the market who are the ones to be on.
This race is all about Blood Destiny and Lossiemouth, and maybe Gala Marceau.
Blood Destiny has tended to jump like a lawnmower on a couple of occasions since moving to Ireland, but this horse looks to have a serious engine. His run in France was a crazy one, he was held up about 20-30L off the leader for most of the race. The pace collapsed in that, but the winner Bo Zenith (now trained in the UK rated in the 130s) was sat closest to the leader, and got an easy couple of lengths over the rest of the field and ran out a convincing winner, but I thought Blood Destiny ran a cracker to finish second that day, looking like a horse who will be effective over longer trips. Since moving to Willie Mullins he has made all on both occasions and has run out an easy winner. The form of his runs looks decent considering he won a maiden hurdle and a normal hurdle race. He beat Sir Allen on debut, that horse is now rated 127 and was quite well-fancied for the juvenile hurdle on Tuesday. The time after he beat Nusret who has since won a Grade 2 and Jazzy Matty who won the hurdle race at Cheltenham a couple of days ago. We've seen that he handles the ground, and the Triumph is often a stamina test, so I think he will be staying on strongly and might be suited for this race.
Lossiemouth is the other Mullins main horse who gets the ride of Paul Townend. His run in France was impressive, jumping well until the very last hurdle where she then hung violently to the left. She has been impressive since moving to Willie Mullins, including when finishing 2nd in the Grade 1 at the DRF. Things didn't go right that day, she was impeded by her stablemate and then had to travel wide and stayed on, but not well enough, losing to Gala Marceau, a horse she had previously beaten by 7.5L. Willie wasn't happy with Townend that day, saying he should've pulled her up instead of giving her a hard race. She is a very good horse, but I think she did have enough time to bridge the gap on the winner, to get closer than 2.5L, considering she easily dispatched of her the time before.
Gala Marceau might've got lucky last time out, but she did what she had to do and won the Grade 1. She probably needed the run the time before when stuffed by Lossiemouth with it being her first run in 240 days, but still shaped well. She had a better RPR from her last start in France compared to Lossiemouth, so I think it is closer than what people think between the two. She is a free-going horse, which goes to show how good she is considering she has won some nice races and doing when being keen through her races. They've opted for the hood to calm her down a bit, but I do worry about how free she can be and staying up the hill as she was getting close on in her French race, not looking like a real true stayer.
The rest can't really be mentioned on the form they've shown, with them needing to find plenty.
