Cheltenham festival 2025: snow falls before racing on day two – live

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A horse from the Mouse Morris stables on the gallops before day two of the Cheltenham festival. Photograph: Dan Istitene/Getty Images

Did you know today was ‘Style Wednesday’? No neither did I. Anyway I have my blue John Smedley long-sleeved polo shirt on and a pair of vintage Levi’s so I hope that passes muster. I discovered that name for today in the details about the all-important going underfoot from the track which many were saying was bordering on good (ie faster ground than the general description) yesterday. The snow will have softened it up a bit and Jon Pullin, Cheltenham’s clerk of the course, said just now: “We had a covering of snow this morning but it turned to sleet as forecast and that should soon disappear. The going for today remains Good to Soft on the [main] Old Course and is Good to Soft, Good in places and Soft on the top loop on the Cross Country Course.”

Hello, and welcome to day two of the festival. And, as Cheltenham themselves point out, what a difference a day makes. When my son got in touch with me worried about whether the racing was going to be on I reminded him that I was there in 1987 when the delayed Gold Cup, won by The Thinker, took place after a sustained snowstorm in the middle of racing. The Sporting Life, where I worked in the 1990s, was still being sold back then and it was a pleasant surprise to see a printed edition of the paper, which closed in 1997, being handed out yesterday by Mike Tindall at Paddington station.

Preamble

Good morning from Cheltenham, where the – somewhat surprising – weather news is that the racecourse received a light covering of snow earlier today. Low-ish temperatures had been predicted after a (relatively) mild day on Tuesday, but actual white stuff dropping out of the sky was not in many punters’ plans, and brought back memories of the festival in 2013 when frost covers were needed to save the meeting and the daytime thermometer hovered around zero all week.

There is no danger to today’s card, however, as the snow turned into sleet at around 8.30am, and temperatures are forecast to rise to around 7C by the time the field set off for the opener, the Turners Novice Hurdle, at 1.20pm.

There is a slight sense of déjà vu about the first two contests on the card, as both are novice events with a Willie Mullins-trained favourite. Mullins did not have things all his own way on Tuesday, however, as Majborough failed to live up to expectations in the Arkle Trophy, and Final Demand (Turners) in particular faces some very credible opposition in The New Lion – seen as a further Champion Hurdle contender by Dan Skelton, his trainer – and Gordon Elliott’s The Yellow Clay.

Ballyburn, in the Broadway Novice Chase, is the first of two likely odds-on shots on the day, although Jonbon, the market leader for the featured Queen Mother Champion Chase at 4.00pm, is a little uneasy in the betting this morning and is now 10-11 in places, with Marine Nationale, the second-favourite, edging closer at around 5-1.

Elsewhere on the card (all the tips for which are here), it is all about big fields and favourites rather closer to double-figure odds, with the Coral Cup Handicap in particular dangling a very enticing carrot for punters as they look to repair some of the damage from a series of unexpected results on Tuesday’s card. And it all wraps up with the Bumper, in which more than half the field is currently unbeaten and it is anyone’s guess in which order the five-strong Willie Mullins contingent will pass the post, never mind the rest of the field.

As ever, you can follow all the buildup and the action from the first flagfall to the last here on the blog, and there’s no need to reach for the winter woollies.