5 key Cheltenham Festival horses to follow using Timeform experts with Ballyburn and Grey Dawning tipped up

Timeform has offered Record Sport readers an insight into the key horses in the five major divisions ahead at this week's glittering Cheltenham Festival.

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Ballyburn (Gallagher's Novices’ Hurdle)

Ballyburn’s seven-length success at the Dublin Racing Festival was comfortably the best performance by a novice hurdler so far this season and that form provides him with outstanding claims in whichever novice hurdle connections elect to contest at the Cheltenham Festival. That dominant victory, which earned Ballyburn a division-leading Timeform rating of 154p, was achieved over two miles but he had previously registered a wide-margin win over two and a half miles so is versatile as well as talented. He is 10lb clear of stablemate Tullyhill and DRF runner-up Slade Steel on Timeform’s figures and sets a lofty standard for his rivals to aim at.

Grey Dawning (Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase/Turners Novices’ Chase)

Grey Dawning also has two Festival options, but he has been much stronger in the betting for the Turners Novices’ Chase, perhaps unsurprisingly so given that route would prevent a clash with Timeform’s highest-rated novice chaser based in Britain or Ireland,