Dan Skelton Cheltenham Festival 2025 day one blog

Cheltenham kicks off on March 11 and Dan Skelton previews his runners on day one of the festival and gives his thoughts on the Champion Hurdle in his latest Ladbrokes blog.

We've got two nice runners on the opening day of the festival - L'Eau du Sud has a big chance in the Arkle. He's undefeated over fences this year, four from four, and has looked very good in everything he's done. I'm really looking forward to running him - he's done nothing wrong.

His last run was a really good run in preparation for this. Ok, he got a bit lonely after the last, and Rubaud ended up getting a bit close to us, but Rubaud did go and win a Grade 2 next time out at Kempton, and we were giving him five-pound on that day So there's nothing wrong with the form. He was good at Cheltenham earlier on in the season, he ticks a lot of boxes and, like I say, his preparation has been good so we can't wait to get him out there.

We take on steomg opposition in Majborough, and it's going to be hard to beat him.. he was a Grade 1 winning hurdler, which we weren't, but we go there full of hope and in the best possible shape we can be in.

Take No Chances runs in the Mares' Hurdle, and she's had a phenomenal year up to this point. She's won two, a listed and a graded race, over two miles, despite her staying further. Her run at the December meeting at Cheltenham, in a mares' handicap hurdle, was fantastic, with the likes of Joyeuse and Wodhooh in there.

I think she's going to have a good each-way chance in this at least. Its a very, very competitive renewal, which is great to see. But I do think she's got a squeak. She's been super consistent and she looks great. She's had the sun on her back recently, and the drying conditions are great, and very important to her. I wouldn't be running her if it was soft ground... these conditions are absolutely perfect for her.

I'm looking forward to Tuesday on the whole, really. My view on the Champion Hurdle is that Constitution Hill will win it. He's a generational talent and, yes, he had that hold-up last year, but he looked like he'd gone past that, from my eyes, at Kempton. It'll take a very special performance to beat a horse who - when he won his first Champion Hurdle, we were all saying he'd never get beaten, and he was going to be the equal of Istabraq... so to be in this position now, where people have started to doubt him is a little unusual. But I think he'll win.

It's great to see Brighterdaysahead taking him on though. You’ve got to have opposition, and this will probably be the strongest opposition he'll have taken on if you really think about it. So he's got to pull something out here, but I think he will - and it'll be great for racing id he does. Constitution Hill and Galopin Des Champs are the two horses this week that have the ability to take racing from the back pages to the front, and I think that - as an industry - we should hope for overall. And if it happens, we should be applauding it.

For those interested, Ladbrokes has an 'everything you need to know' piece ahead of Cheltenham, as well as a beginner's guide to betting at the festival.

View the latest horse racing odds

All odds and markets are correct as of the date of publication.