Cheltenham Festival 2025: Fact To File lands superb success in the Ryanair Chase

Cheltenham Festival 2025: Fact To File lands superb success in the Ryanair Chase

Willie Mullins's eight-year-old grabs the Grade One feature on day three of the 2025 Cheltenham Festival in fine style scoring at the meeting for a second successive season

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Fact To File (6-4 favourite) ran out a superb winner of the Ryanair Chase on the third day of the 2025 Cheltenham Festival.

Willie Mullins' eight-year-old, who won the Grade One Brown Advisory Novices' Chase over 3m1f last year, had been entered in the Cheltenham Gold Cup initially but with hat-trick-seeking stable-mate Galopin Des Champs the leading light in that for the County Carlow handler, connections decided to drop back in trip. The Closuttion maestro stating afterwards that the Gold Cup may have come a year to soon for the JP McManus-owned rising star.

Fact To File did beat Galopin Des Champs in the Grade One John Durkan Memorial Punchestown Chase on his seasonal return in November. But that was over this sort of shorter distance and following defeats to his stable-mate over three-miles-plus in the Savills Chase and the Irish Gold Cup, Fact To File was rerouted to the Ryanair – and it proved to be the perfect decision.

Under Mark Walsh, Fact To File was always travelling well off the lead set first by outsider Jungle Boogie and then French raider Il Est Francais (10-3), who was Fact To File's main market rival. But coming to the third from home, Fact To File moved alongside Il Est Francais before hitting the front. Coming to the turn for home, he moved clear of his rivals. Then he came home a brilliant nine-length winner of the Henry De Bromhead-trained Heart Wood (18-1), who had tried to go with Fact To File but couldn't match his blistering change of gear. De Bromhead stable-mate Envoi Allen (12-1), who had won the Ryanair Chase in 2023 and was second last year under Rachael Blackmore, was a further eight-and-a-half lengths back in third. Last year's winner Protektorat (5-1), from the Dan Skelton stable, was another two-and-a-quarter lengths back in fourth.

READ MORE: Latest entries and weights for the 2025 Randox Grand National

But it was all about the winner, who is likely to have a crack at the Gold Cup in 12 months time. He was cut to 4-1 favourite by William Hill for the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day and is 8-1 with Ladbrokes for the Gold Cup.

Mullins said: "It was a hell of a field and he won very easily, he's a proper horse. They went a good gallop and he just stayed with them and got his jumping right and coming off the bend I don't think Mark was worried, he just needed to get over the last two fences and he did that well.

"It's a surprise the manner he has won it and I was hoping coming here he was good enough to win it and he would win it, but when you've got Il Est Francais and Protektorat in the field, they are good horses and horses of a lifetime for some people. He was able to beat them like that, which is huge. Every day of the week, I think he would be the one to give Galopin Des Champs the biggest problems, I do, and he was in the Gold Cup but we felt it was better to bide our options and let him come to this race.

"He could be a Gold Cup horse next year and he will be a year older, we just felt at this stage of his career, a hard race in the Gold Cup if it turned up soft is not what he wants. That was the way our thinking was all season and JP was very pro that, we just didn't want him to have a hard race in a Gold Cup, as sometimes that can ruin a horse's career. I'm not going to talk about two-year plans after Lossiemouth, but I imagine that's where he will be going next year."

Winning rider Walsh said: “That was brilliant. That sort of distance suits him, as you can let him gallop on and let him use his jumping. He never missed a beat today, he winged everything and he’s just happier going on that stride. We were seeing if he could make a Gold Cup horse, we ran into Galopin Des Champs twice, we tried two different things and it didn’t work, so there’s no point trying it a third time.”

He added: “I was struggling to pull him up! Even coming up by the junction of the track here, he heard all the crowd on my left shouting, and he started pricking his ears and ducking away from them, so there’s loads left.”

Owner McManus had backed Fact To File, saying: "I had a little on today, I couldn't let him run loose! He's a nice horse. I wasn't surprised how he did it to be honest, it was very straightforward."

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