Article #238534

The first four Grade One favourites at the festival are British horses but the Irish battalions are ready for battle

The first four Grade One favourites at Cheltenham next month are stabled in British yards. So are three of the top six names in the Gold Cup betting. From a safe distance on the British side of the water, it is possible to imagine a festival when, for the first time in a decade, the home team heads to the west country with a spring in its step.

But make no mistake, the green tide is coming. Across the length and breadth of the country, from the biggest yards with dozens of festival runners to 10-horse operations with a single stable star, there has been the unmistakeable sense of a confident, well-drilled army mobilising for action at pre-festival media events in Ireland this week. Ireland’s rugby team took a beating in Paris last week and the footballers are struggling to reach even a 48-team World Cup, but its horses, trainers and jockeys are not about to surrender their dominance in National Hunt racing.