Cheltenham's seen as the ultimate benchmark in National Hunt racing, but history shows it doesn't tell the whole story.
Some horses
don't suit Cheltenham's sharper track or the intensity of Festival racing.
Others are asked to run in races that prioritise speed over stamina when
they're built for marathon distances. When those same horses arrive at Aintree,
over longer trips and a completely different set of fences, everything changes.
In recent
years, several Grand National winners have followed this path – they've flopped
at Cheltenham before producing the performance of their lives at Aintree. Their
stories prove that Cheltenham form is useful, but it's not the final word.
Corach
Rambler
Corach
Rambler's main Cheltenham Festival runs came in the Ultima Handicap Chase, a
long-distance handicap that produces staying types rather than Grade 1 stars.
In 2022, he won that race over about three miles and a furlong, finishing first
of 24 runners at 10/1 – a solid win but nothing that screamed Festival
domination.
He followed
up with another Ultima victory in 2023. Winning back-to-back at Cheltenham is
impressive, but it wasn't in the Festival's top graded events. In the 2024
Cheltenham Gold Cup, he finished third behind Galopin Des Champs and Gerri
Colombe.
However,
Corach Rambler's reputation rests on 15th April 2023, when he delivered one of
the standout performances of the jump season to win the 175th Grand National at
Aintree.
That victory
was both a career high and a defining moment for the Scottish-trained gelding.
It showed how a horse's Festival form doesn't always predict Grand National
success.
Rule The
World
Rule The
World's record before his 2016 Grand National win doesn't include any standout
Cheltenham Festival performances. He didn't run in the marquee Festival races
that season, and his earlier Cheltenham appearances ended with unremarkable
results – no placings in championship chases or major handicaps.
His best
Festival effort came years earlier with a sixth-place finish in the World
Hurdle, a staying Grade 1, though that was nowhere near winning form.
Because of
that lack of Festival impact, he was largely overlooked. Attention focused on
higher-profile Festival runners instead. That made his Aintree success – coming
from off the pace to win the 2016 Grand National at big odds – one of the more
surprising results of that year's jump season.
I Am
Maximus
I Am Maximus
didn't make a big impression in major Cheltenham Festival races before his 2024
Grand National victory. Early in his career, he won an Open National Hunt Flat
Race at Cheltenham in October 2020, but that was a standard NHF event rather
than a championship chase, and it took place outside Festival week.
He's since
run in other high-profile races, but not in the key Festival handicap chases
that punters watch closely each spring. As a result, he's never been a headline
name in Gold Cup Antepost betting markets, or in the build-up to Aintree. Yet
he still went on to win over the Grand National fences at close to 7/1 in 2024.
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