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Gavin Cromwell now has Will The Wise closing in on favoritism for the Pertemps Handicap Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. This comes after his impressive success in a qualifier at Naas recently.
The lightly-raced 6yo is improving with every start for Cromwell this term. His latest two-and-a-half length win under Conor Stone Walsh is a firm indicator that this progressive young stayer is going to head to the Festival ahead of the assessor.
Will The Wise is now a general 7/1 second favorite for the Pertemps Handicap. Before that run at Naas, he was a top-price 16/1 shot.
Will The Wise is 25/1 for the Albert Bartlett Novices Hurdle.
After the race, Cromwell said: “I was very unsure how Will The Wise was going to handle the ground. I thought he could weaken coming to the last but he dug deep. He’s also in the Albert Bartlett but we’ll have to see what the handicapper does as well.”
Irish trainers have dominated the Pertemps in recent years, winning seven of the last nine renewals. However, since 2021, only Good Time Johnny, an Irish-trained horse, has won, achieving success in 2023.
Gavin Cromwell might not have the Pertemps on his CV but he’s won several big handicaps this season and has assembled his biggest-ever Cheltenham Festival team this time around.
The Navan-based trainer has six Festival successes to his name including two Stayers’ Hurdles with Flooring Porter. He also won the 2019 Champion Hurdle with Espoir d’Allen.
Cromwell has several high-profile chances but the standouts are probably Stumptown in the Cross Country Chase and Hello Neighbour in the Triumph Hurdle.
The latter, a 97-rated Flat performer, will line up in the juvenile contest as the only horse to have a Grade 1 hurdle success on his CV. This was after winning the big juvenile race at the Dublin Racin Festival.
Stumptown heads into the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase in scintillating form having posted a career-best effort on the numbers on his first try around the cross-country course in December.
His trips to Cheltenham have yielded two wins and two placed efforts from just five visits. This means everything looks in place for a bold show on day two of the Festival. Vanillier who is a stablemate of Stumptown could also be in that contest. That was after the latter returned to his best over the bank’s course at Punchestown in early February.
It’s been a record-breaking season for Cromwell, who has trained 77 winners in his native Ireland. In the process, he has bagged more than 1.75 million euros in prize money.
As well as Cheltenham, Cromwell has his sights set on more big-race glory at Aintree. He is responsible for three horses (Inothewayurthinkin, Stumptown, and Perceval Legallois) that all look capable of being competitive in the Grand National in April. And, that’s without even mentioning his 2023 runner-up Vanillier, who is also likely to be back for another crack.
