Cheltenham Festival 2022: Champion Chase day – live!

LIVE – Updated at 11:59

Energumene v Shishkin in the Champion Chase is the highlight on the second day. Join Niall McVeigh for Festival updates.

The first odds-on shot of the meeting duly obliged on Tuesday and Sir Gerhard will attempt to keep the ball rolling for the shorties in Wednesday’s opener, having been steered around a meeting with Constitution Hill in yesterday’s Supreme – probably very wisely, as it turned out – in favour of a crack at this longer trip. He arrives on the back of two wins from two starts over hurdles, but he will need to jump rather better than he did in a Grade One at Leopardstown last time if he is going to stamp his class on this field.

Willie Mullins will have been working on that since, of course, and Sir Gerhard has finished several lengths in front of Three Stripe Life, the second-favourite, both in last year’s Champion Bumper and his latest race. The longer trip today will also give him a little more room for manoeuvre and it would be a surprise if he failed to see it out, but he is one of those likely winners that is easy to ignore for betting purposes when there are so many alternatives elsewhere on the card.

Journey With Me and Stage Star have also both shown enough so far to suggest that they could be in the same parish as the favourite with normal improvement. Journey With Me in particular will be a popular each-way alternative with Rachael Blackmore taking the reins.

Wednesday’s race card

1.30 Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle

2.10 Festival Novices’ Chase

2.50 Coral Cup

3.30 Queen Mother Champion Chase

4.10 Cross Country Chase

4.50 Grand Annual Chase

5.30 Champion Bumper

In today’s Talking Horses, Greg Wood looks ahead to the Champion Chase duel between Shishkin and Energumene – plus