This year's Cheltenham Festival is set to be another cracker for racing fans, boasting no less than 14 Grade One events spread over four days between the 15th and 18th of March. The hottest event on the second day is the Queen Mother Champion Chase and it is expected to be among the most exciting races at the 2022 festival.
One of the most successful trainers in recent Cheltenham Festival history, namely Willie Mullins, will have two horses in the race this year. Despite his outstanding track record though, he may not have it all his own way once the action gets underway.
The big Champion Chase contenders
Many pundits are expecting the big battle in this year's Champion Chase to be between ‘Energumene' and ‘Shishkin'. The former is one of the two horses racing for Mullins, while the latter has been trained by another big name – Nicky Henderson.
‘Shishkin' arrives at Cheltenham at the peak racing age of eight and having won twice at the event in 2021 – in the Arkle Chase and Supreme Novices' Hurdle. He also claimed victory over ‘Energumene' in a thrilling Ascot Clarence House Chase during January. All of this has contributed to making him the bookmakers' ante-post favourite, with the Champions Chase Tips showing odds of 8/13.
Despite losing that race, Mullins' horse produced a brilliant performance on the day and has been in generally strong form since coming back from injury. That includes winning the Hilly Way Chase in his first competitive race after returning.
‘Energumene' is a classy horse and at 3/1 is right in the mix for the race, but if his best was not enough to get past ‘Shishkin' at Ascot, it may not be enough in Cheltenham.
It is not all about the contest between Mullins and Henderson though, with ‘Envoi Allen' another horse that is attracting some attention. He is currently 16/1 in the ante-post stakes, which could make him an appealing betting option for adventurous punters.
He has suffered a form dip since being beaten in the 2021 Marsh Novices Chase though, which is similar to the situation with last year's winner ‘Put The Kettle On'.
That shock 2021 champ has fallen by the wayside a bit since, although odds of 20/1 show he is considered to have a chance of repeating the feat this year. The second-placed horse last year – ‘Nube Negra' – is also right in the mix again at 10/1. Then there is ‘Chacun Pour Soi' to consider.
A closer look at ‘Chacun Pour Soi'
This horse is the second competitor that Willie Mullins will have in the Queen Mother Champion Chase. What is more, despite most media attention being on ‘Energumene', Mullins has indicated that it is the less fancied horse that he favours for success at Cheltenham.
That would be a surprise to many, although ‘Chacun Pour Soi' is a strong horse with six previous victories in Grade One races behind him. He is 10 years old, which is within the prime racing age for horses – albeit at the upper end of it – and it is not completely improbable that he could achieve his first win at Cheltenham this year.
The biggest doubts about him lie in the fact that he has not raced as well in the past when on UK soil compared to his home turf. Among those disappointments was a last-placed finish at Sandown in the Tingle Creek Chase last winter.
‘Chacun Pour Soi' was the clear odds-on favourite heading into that race, which puts his eventual finish in even sharper perspective. He seemed to lose his stamina completely ahead of the home turn, with Mullins suggesting afterwards that he picked up an injury that may have affected him during the race.
If so it is to be hoped that he is fully recovered from that ahead of the Champion Chase, as we should not forget that he came in third placed in last year's race. His finish suggested he lacked the stamina to improve on that though and it is hard to see how that would have changed now that he is a year older.
Nonetheless, Willie Mullins is one of the best and most successful horse trainers of the modern era and if he says he thinks ‘Chacun Pour Soi' has a good shot that is something racing fans and pundits must pay attention to. In 2015 his stable produced 8 different Cheltenham Festival winners, which remains a joint record to this day.
He is also a Grand National winner as a trainer and member of the Cheltenham Festival hall of fame, due to his consistent triumphs at the event. These are simple facts and they cannot be ignored when we are looking at his assessment of his horse's chances at the upcoming meet.
Of course, it is always possible that Mullins is trying to distract attention away from the more hotly tipped ‘Energumene' ahead of the 2022 Cheltenham Festival. Then again though, he may simply have witnessed something in ‘Chacun Pour Soi over the past weeks that has inspired real confidence in his chances of taking the Champion Chase title.
This year's Champion Chase has all the advance hallmarks of a classic race, with a great rivalry dominating media attention. However, it might be worth taking a gamble on an outside contender from a top trainer to steal the show.
