If a good start is half the battle then the very first race at Cheltenham on Wednesday presents punters with a game of roulette on whether or not the Willie Mullins camp knows its stuff.
The run-up to the festival has contained all the usual speculation about various good things and no-hopers, but a constant throughout has been excitement around Impaire Et Passe.
Winner of a bumper in his native France a year ago, the horse named after a casino gambling move has won both his starts over flights for Mullins in impressive style.
The substance of those races, including last time out in a five-runner Punchestown Grade 2, might be debatable but what isn’t is the excitement he’s generating at Camp Mullins.
Cheltenham Festival 2023: Race times, TV details, best of the Irish and more
Lossiemouth stamps her authority on Champion Hurdle betting with defeat of Teahupoo
Willie Mullins set to take wraps off some of his biggest stars at Punchestown
Ticket costs for next year’s Cheltenham Festival frozen at 2024 prices after review
The swathe of various preview nights held around the country have hummed with how rapidly the five-year-old is progressing and what he might ultimately be capable of.
Since this is the operation that exerts unprecedented dominance over the entire sport, that regard obviously counts for plenty.
Whether it counts for more than form book evidence is an individual throw of the dice to be decided at 1.30 on Wednesday.
Paul Townend hasn’t hesitated in opting for Impaire Et Passe, overlooking the proven Grade 1 credentials of one stable companion in Champ Kiely, and the top-rated handicap rating of another in Gaelic Warrior.
Another proven Irish Grade 1 winner is Good Land representing the Barry Connell team.
Hermes Allen, the main home defence, is also unbeaten and boasts a Grade 1 victory too in the Challow at Newbury.
If that race has a dire record of winners graduating to Cheltenham Festival success weeks later, it doesn’t prevent the suspicion that Hermes Allen is one of those horses that keeps surprising in a positive sense.
Paul Nicholls sent him to Stratford for his debut with minimal expectation based on the horse’s homework and emerged from that with one his best young prospects in some time.
Impaire Et Passe appears to be a much more flamboyant customer at home but that hardly means he can’t step up on that again when it counts.
The same Mullins team has dominated the concluding Weatherbys Champion Bumper like no other festival contest.
Mullins is targeting a 13th win in the race and is doing so with a vengeance by saddling 10 runners in all.
His son Patrick has traditionally had first-dibs and has wrong-footed some this time by opting for Fact To File rather than the long-time ante-post favourite It’s For Me.
Soft ground conditions will have upset quite a number of pre-race assumptions in this and there has been joy in the past for those prepared to ignore the apparent Mullins pecking order.
Relegate and Briar Hill both won at big odds and Westport Cove could be another one of those to shake things up at a reasonable price.
What could shake Cheltenham up good and proper is the prospect of a win for A Dream To Share.
John Gleason, the 18-year-old secondary school student and son of RTE racing pundit Brian Gleason, rode this exciting prospect to an impressive Dublin Racing Festival success last month.
On the back of that the horse was bought by Cheltenham’s most successful ever owner, JP McManus.
However, should the horse deliver a breakthrough Cheltenham success for his 85-year-old trainer John Kiely it will be a hugely popular moment.
Training for almost 50 years, Dungarvan-based Kiely is attempting to follow in the footsteps of his brother Paddy who trained Shuil Ar Aghaidh to win the Stayers here 30 years ago.
His colleague Liam Burke, at a comparatively youthful 66, became the oldest man in a century to ride a winner at Limerick at the weekend and there will be widespread goodwill towards another veteran victory on the greatest stage of all if it emerges.
Last year’s runner-up, Andy Dufresne, is back for another crack at the Grand Annual but it is a different McManus hope, Dinoblue, trained by Mullins, who could be in advance of the handicapper.
Wednesday’s other Grade 1, the Brown Advisory Novice Chase, will see Gerri Colombe try to maintain his unbeaten record.
The stars appear to have aligned for the dual-Grade 1 winner with soft ground assured and jockey Jordan Gainford maintaining a notably productive relationship.
Willie Mullins is chasing a record sixth win in the race, a quarter of a century after first striking with Florida Pearl.
With five of the 11 runners he is attacking this with strength too and in the dual-festival winner Sir Gerhard he has a proven quality performer.
Sir Gerhard’s sole start over fences to date, however, wasn’t particularly convincing and won’t have Gerri Colombe supporters quaking.
At a bigger price another Mullins hope Ramillies could be one for each-way players.
If the Glenfarclas Cross Country is a match between the stable companions Delta Work and Galvin then ground conditions may have swung things the way of last year’s winner.
Either way Gordon Elliott looks set to equal Enda Bolger’s race record of five wins in total.
