With the Cheltenham Festival countdown well underway we have been looking at the possible mounts of the three jockeys heading the betting for the Thomas Pink leading Rider award. By our reckoning Ruby Walsh, Tony McCoy and Barry Geraghty could be on something like 18 horses with favourites chances come the festival. These three jockeys are already the winningmost since 1945.
Barry Geraghty won the 2012 prize with 5 wins and looks to have two big bankers for 2013 in Sprinter Sacre and Simonsig. He is joint favourite for the 2013 award with Ruby Walsh and seems set to ride six race favourites.
In figuring out Geraghty’s Cheltenham rides we simply took the shortest price horse in each market trained by his boss Nicky Henderson and excluded horses where we thought AP McCoy and Sam Waley-Cohen would have first option.
Barry spoke to TG4 about his Cheltenham Festival rides ( before the rain came):
That left us with this early guess at Barry Geraghty’s 2013 Cheltenham Festival rides (odds may have changed):
| Tuesday 12 March 2013 | Horse | Odds |
| Supreme Novices’ Hurdle | River Maigue | 12/1 |
| Arkle Chase | Simonsig | 4/6F |
| Festival Steeple Chase (Handicap) | Quantitativeeasing | 25/1 |
| Champion Hurdle | Grandouet | 7/1 |
| Mares’ Hurdle | Une Artiste | 7/1 |
| Novices’ Handicap Chase | – | 25/1 |
| Wednesday 13 March 2013 | ||
| Neptune IM Novices’ Hurdle | Chatterbox | 16/1 |
| RSA Chase | Hadrians Approach | 12/1 |
| Queen Mother Champion Chase | Sprinter Sacre | 2/9F |
| Coral Cup (Handicap Hurdle) | ? | |
| Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle | Megapalypos | 12/1 |
| Weatherbys Champion Bumper | Blackmail | 25/1 |
| Thursday 14 March 2013 | ||
| Jewson Novices’ Chase | Captain Conan | 4/1 |
| Pertemps Final (Handicap Hurdle) | Top of The Range | 14/1 |
| Ryanair Chase | Riverside Theatre | 8/1 |
| World Hurdle | Oscar Whisky | 7/2F |
| Byrne Group Plate | Molotof | 16/1 |
| Friday 15 March 2013 | ||
| Triumph Hurdle | Rolling Star | 5/1 |
| County Handicap Hurdle | ||
| Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle | Utopie Des Bordes | 11/1 |
| Cheltenham Gold Cup Chase | Bobs Worth | 3/1F |
| Grand Annual Chase | Tanks for That | 20/1 |
