Cheltenham’s seen as the ultimate benchmark in National Hunt racing, but history shows it doesn’t tell the whole story. For all the data, debate and Cheltenham betting markets built around the Festival, a poor run at Prestbury Park can be misleading.
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.