It would be fair to describe the 2025 Cheltenham Festival as something of a disaster for punters.
On day one alone, Majborough and Constitution Hill failed to win as red hot odds-on favourites, before Jonbon and Ballyburn were also turned over when well backed at the bookies just 24 hours later.
The dismay of punters on Wednesday was well and truly felt by Tony Bloom, the Brighton & Hove Albion owner and sometime poker player and professional gambler.
He owns Energumene, the two-time Champion Chase winner, who was bidding for a hat-trick in the flagship race of day two.
Confidence was high in the Bloom camp; so much so that the Brighton owner placed a £50,000 bet on his horse coming out on top.
Alas, true to form at the Festival this year, it was disappointment all round…
Bloomin’ Heck
It has been a quiet season for Energumene, the eleven-year-old that runs in the same shade of blue of Brighton’s home kit.
He won the Hilly Way Chase back in November, before running into Champion Chase favourite Jonbon in the Clarence House Chase – the subsequent six-length margin of defeat suggested that Energumene was no forlorn hope at the Cheltenham Festival.
And when he burst out of the blocks in the two-mile renewal, Bloom and trainer Willie Mullins were no doubt dreaming of a unique slice of history: no horse has won three editions of the Champion Chase since Badsworth Boy in the eighties.
After seven flights of fences, Paul Townend had navigated Energumene into the lead, and he continued to travel strongly until three from home.
And then, well, everything began to unravel.
Energumene ran out of steam – not hugely surprising for a veteran eleven-year-old in what is a keenly run renewal. He began to drop back through the field, jumped poorly two out and was sensibly pulled up by Townend, who realised that his mount had very little left to give. Marine Nationale went on to beat Jonbon down the home stretch.
All of which left Bloom a cool £50k out of pocket. Mind you, for a man with a net worth of an estimated £1.3 billion, that’s perhaps not the end of the world…
Ferguson and Redknapp Hoping to Score Again at Cheltenham
Bloom isn’t the only football connection with an ownership interest at the Cheltenham Festival.
Sir Alex Ferguson has long had an ownership interest in horse racing, with his now soured relationship with J.P. Magnier leading to a number of wins for Rock of Gibraltar, the 2000 Guineas and Prix de Moulin champion that brought home £1.1 million in prize money.
At the 2024 edition of the Cheltenham Festival, the Manchester United legend celebrated a dual big race win in a fine double. Monmiral led the field home in the Pertemps Network Final Handicap Hurdle, before another Ferguson-owned horse – Protektorat – obliged in the Ryanair Chase.
And champagne corks were popping once more at the Festival in 2025, as Ferguson’s Caldwell Potter – under a strong ride from Harry Cobden – trounced the field in the Golden Miller to win by more than six lengths.
Protektorat returned to defend his honour in the Ryanair Chase, while another Ferguson-owned horse – Il Ridoto – got a chance to add another victory to the Scot’s increasingly impressive Cheltenham Festival record, although both fell short on the day.
Elsewhere, one of Ferguson’s former managerial comrades will be hoping for more Cheltenham Festival glory of his own this week.
Harry Redknapp was cock-a-hoop in 2024 when the appropriately-named Shakem Up‘Arry got his nose in front in the Handicap Plate.
The former Tottenham and West Ham boss returns this week with Shakem Up‘Arry, the horse which took its name from a rather passionate Hammers fan that used to berate Redknapp at Upton Park. “I used to have a guy stand behind me at West Ham when I was manager,” he recalled. “For 90 minutes, he’d shout right behind my dugout: ‘Shake ’em up, ‘Arry, shake ’em up, ‘Arry.”
However, another of Redknapp’s horses – The Jukebox Man – has been ruled out of the Festival due to injury.
Redknapp, known in his managerial days as something of a wheeler-dealer, managed to bag himself another deal with another equine protégé, Yellow Car.
He was offered a share in the horse but initially refused, until his cleaner turned up for work not in her usual car but a rental vehicle instead.
It’s colour? Yellow, of course.
“This must be an omen,” was Redknapp’s response. He immediately got back on the phone and completed the deal. Yellow Car runs in the Allbert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle on Friday at the Cheltenham Festival.