Record smashing racing at Cheltenham Festival

This years Cheltenham Festival is certainly the stuff of legends and will without doubt go down in steeplechase history and will be a benchmark for all future Cheltenham Festival events. For 2009 is the year that records were completely smashed; the first record breaking episode belongs to Ruby Walsh who walked away with 7 captivating steeplechase wins. Ruby’s name is a fitting tribute as he is without doubt a gem of a jockey delivering wins of gigantic proportions and smashing the previous record of five winners at the festival. If that in itself is not enough to get the horse racing world excited then Kauto Star rising like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes to be the first horse in festival history to come back from the wilderness to re-claim the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Ruby Walsh was ecstatic claiming that Kauto Star was without doubt “the greatest horse I’ve ever ridden”. The celebrations were not happening on the bookies side, with estimated losses in the region of £10m, Fred Done of Betfred was quoted as saying “I’ve been bashed up by Kauto Star’s win” the payout to punters is going to cost BetFred in the region of £1m as Kauto Star had odds of 9/4 just prior to the race. Mr Done was pragmatic about the winning horse stating that he was pleased to have seen history made, however he also remarked about his feelings on the race “although obviously not pleasant to watch!”. Fred Done has said the he will use some caution when taking on bets for Kauto Star in the future. All the bookmakers took a hammering and will be counting their losses very carefully; the winning punters however will be celebrating in style and thanking their lucky stars that Ruby Walsh was riding such a fabulous horse which was ultimately trained by such an incredible trainer as Paul Nicholls.