The Three Best Rides Of The Cheltenham Festival 2019

The first ride of the week from the Cheltenham Festival that we want to discuss comes from the first day at Prestbury Park and the last race of the day in the National Hunt Chase.

This 18 runner contest saw only four horses finish with third placed Jerrysback rider Declan Lavery involved in the ongoing debate on BHA bans, where he picked up a 10 day ban for not pulling up the horse.

Anyway, the ride that we want to celebrate was the eventual winner of the 3 mile 7 1/2f contest in Le Breuil for trainer Ben Pauling under one of the rides of the 2019 festival by amateur rider Jamie Codd.

The Codfather although an amateur has been in the sport for a long time and has now nine festival winners to his name, but what he proved this week is that he can mix it with the best.

Codd was in a lot of trouble when jumping the last in the Grade 2 contest with the second placed Discorama jumping the final fence just in front of him and looking like he was going to stay on up the hill just hat bit better.

However, the opposite happened and Codd battled back really strong on the rail to just get Le Breuil up for the win and it was just a masterclass in how to race a horse.

Credit - Racing TV

The second ride of the week in our eyes came from the great Noel Fehily on his only winner of the week and what looks to be his last ever winner at the festival in his career after announcing his retirement after his victory.

The Grade 2 Mares Novice Hurdle on the Thursday at Cheltenham has been won by trainer Willie Mullins on all three of the races previous renewals.

He fielded a strong team of seven in this contest, looking to keep that record and he went on to do it with Eglantine Du Seuil at odds of 50/1.

However, if it was not for the superb ride that Fehily gave the horse, she would not have got up to win.

The jockey coming up to the last looked beat with at least six or seven horses ahead of him and with the mare off the bridle, she looked well beat.

But from nowhere Eglantine Du Seuil jumped the lost and pressed hard by Fehily just got up on the line to take the contest in one of the best rides of the week.

Fehily has had a memorable career and will be missed by many in the sport with his last ever ride set to be at Newbury on Saturday.

However, what a superb way to go out with such superb ride to land his final Cheltenham Festival winner.

Credit - Racing TV

The last but certainly not least comes from the ever progressing Nico de Boinville on board the Nicky Henderson trained William Henry, who arguably gave the best ride on this horse out of three on show here.

The Grade 3 Coral Cup on the Wednesday saw at least 12 horses jumping the last flight in with a chance of winning with the veteran Wicklow Brave for Willie Mullins scooting to the front and looking sure to land the contest from the third placed Ballyandy.

However, de Boinville had other ideas and with the last few strides of the race left, he managed to get the nine year old up on the line to take the glory.

This race truly is a minefield for punters and this was proved with William Henry winning at 28/1, second placed Wicklow Brave finishing at 28/1 and third placed Ballyandy finishing at 14/1.

This for us was truly a special ride to watch but out of three we have on show here do you agree with them all being in the top three or do you think there have been better rides across the four day festival this year?

Credit - Racing TV