If last year’s edition was a coronation for Ballyburn, the Turners Novices Hurdle of 2025 (registered as the Baring Bingham) could hardly be more different. There are four Grade 1 winners in the line-up where Willie Mullins runs six in the opener on day two of the Cheltenham Festival.
Changing sponsors so often isn’t doing the contest any favours, but this edition promises to be spectacular. Whether you best remember this as the SunAlliance, Neptune, Ballymore or even Gallagher Novices’ Hurdle, it’s a blockbuster beginning to Style Wednesday.
Other races on the Cheltenham schedule lack depth, especially with Ballyburn heading one of four Mullins mounts in a seven-runner Brown Advisory. A repeat of last season’s incredible 1-2-3-4-5 in this looks impossible.
Final Demand is best of the Closutton sextet with a scarily good Golden Cygnet success during the Dublin Racing Festival. Serious opposition comes from outside of the stable in the form of Challow Hurdle hero The New Lion, Naas Grade 1 scorer The Yellow Clay and the prolific Potters Charm.
So impressed was JP McManus with the former’s display at Newbury that he purchased The New Lion from owners looking to get out of racing. Gordon Elliott has also campaigned The Yellow Clay through the grades in such a way that he’s well worth his place in the line-up.
You could argue that some runners in the Turners Novices Hurdle of 2025 would be better off contesting the Albert Bartlett. Their connections opted against the three-mile Grade 1 on Gold Cup day in favour of this. Horse racing fans are in for a real treat, then.
Challow Curse Doesn’t Deter Bookies & Punters
The New Lion has a high-profile owner now and defends an unbeaten record on his first Prestbury Park outing. Challow winners have an abysmal record of 0-21 at the Festival, however, but those having a flutter on Cheltenham betting sites don’t seem bothered.
Stats say that Grade 1 race run between Christmas and New Year appears to leave its mark on horses. The New Lion was far from top gear in a contemptuously victory around Newbury, however, and it’s hard to argue with his status as vying for favouritism.
Final Demand had his own authoritative display at Leopardstown for a trainer seeking a fourth consecutive victory in the Baring Bingham. Mullins definitely has a chasing type on his hands here, so it could come down to which of the most fancied pair is best suited to hurdling.
Don’t think the Turners Novices Hurdle in 2025 is simply a two-horse race, though. The Yellow Clay Stays further and, battle-hardened by sluicing clear uphill to the line at Naas, could represent value in the Cheltenham odds against Mullins and Skelton.
Samcro took this for Cullentra House handler Elliott in 2018. Envoi Allen followed suit two years later. In recent times, Ireland’s other top yard has done as well as anyone else bar Closutton maestro Mullins, then.
The Yellow Clay is one of the Jack Kennedy rides for Elliott’s returning stable jockey. He has done really well to come back from yet another broken bone in one of his legs to pilot the top mounts coming to Cheltenham from the yard.
Potters Charm & Sixmilebridge Rematch in Turners Novices Hurdle of 2025
You have to go further back beyond the Irish domination, but Nigel Twiston-Davies has three wins in the Baring Bingham. The New One was the last of the local to Cheltenham stable’s successes in this back in 2013. Potters Charm represents the yard in this renewal after a busy campaign.
Progressing to land the Grade 1 Formby Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree on Boxing Day, Potters Charm had another run at Cheltenham races on Festival Trials Day. He bumped into Sixmilebridge on that occasion from another nearby yard in Fergal O’Brien.
Now, there’s some controversy here. Sixmilebridge has subsequently failed a drugs test after his Grade 2 Classic Novices’ Hurdle victory. Regardless of that, Potters Charm is better off at the weights with him and they switch from the New Course to the Old on better ground.
As a good going course and distance winner in the Hyde from November, the Twiston-Davies horse may be most suited by conditions in the Turners Novices Hurdle of 2025 and the track. Both Potters Charm and Sixmilebridge are Cheltenham horses with experience of running here, and at worst credible contenders for the home team.
Away from the top five in the betting, the other six are trickier to assess. Mullins has five more runners besides Final Demand. Two also run in the McManus silks sported by The New Lion. They are Kaid D’Authie and Kel Histoire. Both should find this trip within their compass.
It’s more a case of whether they are up to this level in such a hot race. Even less exposed is Kiss Will for the same syndicate of owners as last year’s County Hurdle hero Absurde. Kappa Jy Pyke and 2024 Supreme seventh Supersundae complete the Closutton sextet.
