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In March every year jockeys, trainers, owners and fans flock to Prestbury Park for the ultimate horseracing show as the Cheltenham Festival brings the National Hunt jump racing season to a thrilling conclusion.
It’s a four-day showcase of the best horses and jockeys jostling alongside one another for pride, prestige and the adulation of the watching crowd.
Each day there’s a champion race, with Tuesday hosting the Champion Hurdle, Wednesday the Queen Mother Champion Chase, Thursday the Stayers’ Hurdle and Friday culminating with the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Every jockey, owner and trainer tailors their season to peak at the festival and throughout the week there’s a good-natured rivalry between those from Ireland and Great Britain to see who performs strongest.
But in recent times, it’s been no contest at all.
The last decade has been dominated by Irish winners, all trained by some of the legends of the sport such as Willie Mullins, who scored a landmark 100th winner at Cheltenham last year, and Gordon Elliott, who has trained Grand National winner Tiger Roll and Gold Cup champion Don Cossack.
The Prestbury Cup is the annual award competed for by the British and Irish trainers. Whichever nation secures the most winners over the four days wins the trophy. Since it became an official part of the festival in 2014, Ireland has won it eight times, Britain twice and there was a lone draw in 2019.
The last three years alone have seen the Irish notch up 18 winners compared to Britain’s 10 (or nine in the case of 2024) from the festival’s 28 races. Over the last 11 years, Ireland has blown Britain out of the water, having secured 184 winners compared to the 120 of its rivals.
But why is this the case?
Mullins has previously pointed to the Irish structure as one of the underlying reasons behind the country’s success.
“I think it is our programme,” he told RacingUK.com in 2023, “In Ireland, when we gave the running of racing to the IHA [Irish Horseracing Authority] and then HRI [Horse Racing Ireland], it made government-backed racing planning and prize money. We have a good environment for people to spend money on young horses and there is prize money for them to run for.
“I find over in England there is very little prize money in the novice races, and you have to go to the big handicaps. That sets the horses back. English racing is a diet of handicaps and there is no incentive. Nobody sets out to buy a handicapper, you set out to buy a good horse, and we have a better system to educate and bring on good horses.”
What Mullins said makes a lot of sense and he has backed up his words. In April 2024, the 68-year-old was named the British jump trainers’ champion. He became the first Irishman to win the title in 70 years which was a hammer blow for British jump racing.
Worse still is the fact that Mullins didn’t even enter as many horses as some of his British rivals. The British jump trainers’ championship is decided by prize money and Mullins trained the winners of the Grand National, the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Scottish Grand National to name three of the bigger races last year. His horses won over £3.2m, more than those of British counterparts Dan Skelton and Paul Nicholls.
The proliferation of Irish horses competing in the UK is also a problem for the Brits. In 2023, 1,000 Irish horses were competing in UK races: between them, they won £6.5m in prize money. In comparison, that same period saw just one British-trained horse win in Ireland.
More prize money means more investment and more investment means more success.
Another issue is the more the Irish succeed, the more British-based owners move their horses to Ireland to get trained, meaning the best horses leave the country.
Yet, the biggest problem comes down to the prize money itself, which isn’t lucrative enough in Britain. That is an issue the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) must tackle. Prize money has been steadily dropping and there isn’t as much money in British racing as there used to be.
Operating stables and training winners is a costly business and, outside huge events like the Cheltenham Festival, the rewards in Britain often don’t have enough appeal. Consequently, British trainers and owners are entering their horses into races in other countries, such as the United States and Saudi Arabia, where winning brings greater rewards and more money to keep their businesses running.
All of this then comes to a head at Cheltenham. The festival draws in millions of viewers from diehard fans to casual watchers who tune in for four days and forget about the sport for the rest of the year.
Yet what they see is telling. Graphics on ITV signalling another Irish winner and Britain struggling to compete over the course of the four days. Those out of the loop are left to wonder why the Irish trainers are dominating the British.
Now you know.
