When late winter’s light brushes the emerald Cotswold hills and the Cheltenham tapes rise, the great drama of National Hunt racing begins anew. For every trainer, owner, and punter, Cheltenham offers the barometer by which reputations are measured, dreams are validated, and legends are written into eternity. Enter Lossiemouth: a phenomenon in grey, and Cheltenham’s uncatchable shadow—a horse whose every stride is draped in inevitability.
Three Marches. Three Command Performances. The numbers leap off the page like highlighter on worn racing notes: Triumph Hurdle, 2023, won by three lengths; Mares’ Hurdle, 2024, dispatched by six; Mares’ Hurdle again in 2025, this time a seven-and-a-half lengths demolition. Now, as she turns seven, Willie Mullins asks even more of his prized charge, the 2026 Champion Hurdle, and her biggest test yet.
The marketplace is already braced, with online betting sites installing Lossimouthe as the early favorite. The latest Bovada horse betting odds currently list the powerful mare as the 7/2 front runner, well clear of both The New Lion and Sir Gino. Even with a stinging Leopardstown fall on her resume and the agony of Christmas Hurdle heartbreak at the hands of Constitution Hill, Lossiemouth retains what so many lose: that sensation of being a horse for the very biggest stage.
Annie Power
Some races live in shadows; others illuminate entire eras. Annie Power, the flame-maned Irish star, gave us both—the icy hand of fate in 2015 saw her fall flat on the grass with the Mares’ Hurdle in sight, saving bookmakers an estimated £50m. 12 months later, she delivered her finest moment.
Not just supplemented, but summoned for redemption after Faugheen’s injury, Annie Power was driven by more than the bluster of betting—she was chasing peace for connections and punters alike. With memories of the previous year’s heartbreak firmly in mind, Annie Power romped to the defining win of her career, winning the 2016 Champion Hurdle. The mare duly swept aside the well-backed My Tent or Yours by four and a half lengths to deliver Millins and jockey Ruby Walsh the catharsis that had eluded them so cruelly before, securing her legacy as one of Cheltenham’s all-time greats.
Honeysuckle
In an era defined by uncertainties, Honeysuckle gave jumping fans something transcendent: perfection. Henry de Bromhead and Rachael Blackmore forged a partnership with the mare that broke boundaries—in 2021, she blitzed the Champion Hurdle by six and a half, her gallop pure poetry, course records tumbling. With the world returning in 2022, Honeysuckle stared down rivals and expectation alike, seeing off Epatante to defend her crown and stretch her career unbeaten tally to 15.
Four Festival visits. Four wins. No one ever lowered her colors up the Cheltenham hill. Such sustained excellence is dizzying. Her 2023 Mares’ Hurdle swansong balanced emotion with ability, and though late-career defeats proved she was mortal, they only enhanced her aura, reinforcing the courage beneath the heroine. It wasn’t just about speed and stamina—it was the connection with Blackmore, the surge in the crowd, the sense of witnessing a generational horse.
Epatante
Amid the baleful quiet of a global events-stricken Cheltenham, Epatante’s story pivoted less on color and sound, and more on tactical exactitude. A filly with polish and questions—her 2019 Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle flame-out left critics circling—and yet Henderson and McManus never lost faith.
Epatante’s 2020 Champion Hurdle was a lesson in ambush: held up by Barry Geraghty, stalking a pace that shimmered with potential energy, and then, on the run to the last, kick-starting that rare acceleration into living memory. Three lengths to spare over Sharjah, a clinical demolition, and the eighth Champion Hurdle in trainer Nicky Henderson’s storied portfolio. Was she as dominant as Annie, as historic as Honeysuckle? Maybe not. But Epatante’s legacy is in her answers: turning skepticism into applause and banishing the doubts that dogged her after Kempton’s Boxing Day and Cheltenham’s open questions. For a fleeting moment, she was untouchable.
Golden Ace
And then, in the carousel of Cheltenham shocks, earlier this year, there was Golden Ace. No story better captured racing’s wild danger than hers—a £12,000 recruit transformed into an icon on a day when the script was torn and tossed to the Cleeve wind. The facts remain nearly absurd: Constitution Hill, down four from home; State Man, down at the last. In the manic aftermath, the 25/1 Golden Ace stayed upright and unflustered, surging nine lengths clear of Burdett Road—a finish as emphatic as it was improbable.
Yet history asks questions of substance. Would she have won but for carnage? Perhaps not. But Cheltenham is as much about seizing the moment—and Golden Ace did, just as Dorothy Paget’s greats did generations before. The Kingwell Hurdle sent up a flare; Cheltenham delivered fireworks.
