Finally given her shot at Unibet Champion Hurdle glory, Lossiemouth gloriously stepped up to the challenge and delivered a resounding success on Tuesday’s opening day of the 2026 Cheltenham Festival.
The Willie Mullins-trained grey travelled like a winner throughout and the 7-5 favourite powered up the hill to beat Ireland’s other top mare Brighterdaysahead by six-and-a-half lengths under champion jockey Paul Townend. Britain’s The New Lion was third.
It was a comprehensive form turnaround from last month’s Dublin Racing Festival where Brighterdasahead got the better of her rival. But on the day that counts most, Lossiemouth stepped up to win at the festival for a fourth year in a row.
That it was her first try at hurdling’s championship inevitably produced supposition as to what she might have done in the race had she lined up in it before.
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Following her 2023 Triumph Hurdle victory, there were a pair of Mares’ Hurdle successes at odds-on that generated flak for Mullins and owner Rich Ricci about their apparent lack of competitive ambition.
Her routine 2025 Mares’ success came 40 minutes before an incident-packed Champion where her stable companion State Man fell at the last, Constitution Hill exited at the fifth, and a race that fell apart ultimately landed in the lap of the inferior Golden Ace.
‘What if’ scenarios weren’t swept away by this success, but it did give Lossiemouth a deserved place in the elite as just the eighth mare to win the Champion Hurdle. Five of the last seven renewals have gone to runners in receipt of the 7lb sex allowance, including Honeysuckle twice.
The allowance was irrelevant on this occasion such was Lossiemouth’s authority. First-time cheek pieces had her travelling sweetly behind Brighterdaysahead, who was forced to cut out the pace.
With Harry Skelton plotting a carefully wide route on The New Lion, the outcome always looked to concern the old rivals, but once over the last there was no contest at all. It was a sixth Champion Hurdle for Mullins, a third for Ricci, while Townend added to State Man’s 2024 win.
Rarely one to retreat from a position, Mullins could see the media angle coming and afterwards played the straightest of straight bats.
“To win the Champion Hurdle definitely outranks everything else she’s done. But to come back here four years in a row is an achievement in itself, and to win four years is ... she’s gone Triumph, Mares’ twice, and then this, and it’s been superb.
“Just 12 months ago, State Man would have left her for dead,” he grinned. “When State Man fell last year, he might have brought her down!”
Lossiemouth has won 14 of her 18 starts and only once been out of the first two, earning comparisons from her trainer to Quevega, who won a record six times at the festival.
Both Mullins and Townend pointed to first-time cheek pieces as the final piece of the jigsaw that saw them finally commit to the Champion at the weekend and make a mockery of fears that the two-mile trip might be too sharp.
“When we worked her in cheek pieces, she just came alive. I was on the fence about the Champion Hurdle, but I thought she needed to find that little bit of spark that we thought she had before,” Townend said. “But Willie has trained her differently as well, and he’s forgotten more about training racehorses than I’ve ever known.”
Mullins added: “When I put cheek pieces on her the other morning I thought ‘Wow, that’s the old Lossiemouth.”
Earlier, Kargese and Danny Mullins turned what was supposed to be a match for the Singer Arkle Trophy into an upset and a reminder that jumping really is the name of the game.
Boiled down, her better fancied stable companion Kopek Des Bordes and the English favourite failed the jumping test when it really counted.
Having made all, Kargese already had Lulamba under pressure until an error at the second last ruined whatever chance he had. To huge Irish cheers ‘Kopek’ took the lead before the last only to blunder and hand the initiative to his stable companion.
The sole mare in the race, winner of last year’s County Hurdle, powered up the hill to score by over two lengths and get the Mullins team off the mark for the week.
“You’ve got to judge it tactically right. Everyone maybe expected us to burn off in front, but I was just trying to use my jumping as my strongest asset. Even when I got headed over the second last, I knew I wasn’t done with yet, I hadn’t burned the petrol early,” Danny Mullins said.
Along with Lossiemouth, the outcome put the lie to any suspicion that hard races at last month’s Dublin Racing Festival might leave their mark. Kargese had a harder race than most there, perhaps giving connections of Romeo Coolio, who beat her then, something to ponder before Wednesday’s Brown Advisory.
