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Cheltenham Festival: Brighterdaysahead will be hard to beat in the Mares’ Hurdle – if she lines up

Ruby Walsh

Cheltenham Festival, Horse Racing Tips

5 months ago

*Odds quoted on the widget are Future Racing / Antepost prices which means that if your selection does not run in the race for whatever reason – you will lose your stake under traditional Antepost rules.

Paddy Power Media’s ‘From The Horse’s Mouth’ podcast ‘Cheltenham Countdown’ is back as host Tom Nugent picks the brains of the Cheltenham Festival’s winning-most jockey turned TV pundit Ruby Walsh and well-known journalist and broadcaster Rory Delargy.

In the third episode of this year’s series, the gang have looked at the Mares’ Hurdle ahead of the 2025 Cheltenham Festival.

RUBY WALSH

I know the Champion Hurdle has been the target for a long time for Lossiemouth and a lot will depend on how she runs this weekend at the Dublin Racing Festival and whether those plans change.

There’s a couple of ways of looking at this race isn’t there? It all depends on where the two market principals Brighterdaysahead and Lossiemouth end up. In many ways now though, you’re taking a proper ante-post view on this race.

A lot of people would like both of those mares to line up in the Champion Hurdle against Constitution Hill. A lot may depend on what happens this weekend. If Brighterdaysahead doesn’t run at Leopardstown and Lossiemouth wins the Irish Champion Hurdle, there’s still a chance that both could take on Constitution Hill next month.

But for now, I’m afraid that’s one of those ones that’s going to have to play out over time and we’re only guessing trying to figure out what’s the angle into it. Until you know the two mares’ definitive plans for Cheltenham – it’s a pure guess.

It won’t be decided by Sunday. It’s just one of the great unknowns. We’re all in a rush to know what’s going on tomorrow. So it is a difficult one.

There are plenty of mares in behind them in the market, who are genuinely good mares, if not quite at Lossiemouth or Brighterdaysahead’s level.

If you’re calling it right now – you’d have to go with Brighterdaysahead.

Brighterdaysahead

You’d hope she goes for the Champion Hurdle but if she lines up in the Mares Hurdle, she will be really hard to beat in it. I thought she was brilliant at Christmas when winning at Leopardstown. She’s improved all along.

I don’t think the fact she was beaten at Cheltenham last year is an issue. That was purely tactics on the day. She is rock solid.

Outside the big two

Kargese needed the race at Ascot last time. Even more so, as you could argue she left the race in the parade ring. There was a delay over the weight that the Jonjo O’Neill horse was carrying so they were in the ring for a long time. By the time she’d left the parade ring, it was like she’d run her race.

That ‘fizz’ had to come out of her. She is a ‘highly-strung’ filly and that was always going to be a chance with her. With the run under her belt now, I think she’d have stepped forward. Last year’s juveniles do look a rock-solid bunch when you look at Sir Gino and Majborough and see how they’ve progressed. She’s form with both and she’s a good mare.

Kateira didn’t look to stay the trip at Doncaster behind Jetara last Saturday, but even so, she’ll need another level of form up from that. I wonder if Golden Ace could get back to her strongest, or does she want to go back down in trip?

A mare that did impress me at Christmas was July Flower (who beat Kala Conti at Leopardstown) who came from a long way off the pace. She has some really good form in France last year. July Flower and Kargese, they’re good mares – but it’s hard to go beyond either of the two of them without the big two.