Cheltenham Festival 2024 LIVE RESULTS: Templegate’s tips, race cards and free bets

‘It’s everything I wanted’

After returning to glory 25 years ago, Paul Nicholls is hoping for a slew of new success.

In 1999, the new-faced trainer greeted Flagship Uberalles in the Arkle, Call Equiname in the Champion Chase and See More Business in the Gold Cup.

There’s no doubt about it: these results have put Nicholls on the map.

He said: “What a great week that was. 25 years ago? Christ! I didn’t realize that.

“When you start training, all you want is a Cheltenham winner. I had been training for about eight years at that point and hadn’t had many sniffs yet, but then three came at once.

“That got everything going for us. Without that week we might not have had the Kauto’s and Denman’s. We’ve had 48 Cheltenham winners and it would be nice to reach 50 in 25 years, wouldn’t it?

“When Flagship won, we went to the pub and had a little party. I told everyone, “We enjoy this the most” because we had no idea when the next one would come.

“The next day Call Equiname goes and wins the Champion Chase. We replayed the previous night’s festivities, God, we couldn’t believe it.

“The next day ‘See More’ did it, we spent a week in the pub! Oh, it was just wonderful, absolutely wonderful. It took a while to recover from the hangover, but it was worth it.”