Lossiemouth and Cheltenham are an irresistible combination
Paul Townend celebrates aboard Lossiemouth after winning the Unibet Champion Hurdle on day one of the 2026 Cheltenham Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse. Pic: Mike Egerton/PA Wire.
Some things are just meant to be. Ten years ago, Annie Power, a mare trained by Willie Mullins and owned by Rich and Susannah Ricci, was belatedly granted a shot at the Champion Hurdle and rose majestically to the challenge.
A decade on, Lossiemouth was somewhat surprisingly given the chance to land hurdling’s most cherished prize and, like Annie Power, she did so in style, drawing away from Brighterdaysahead and The New Lion in the closing stages to claim her fourth Festival success.
How’s that for serendipity?
“It's unbelievable, magic, great,” Rich Ricci said. “It's 10 years since Annie Power won, it's hard to win these races and she always tries and all credit goes to Willie.
“About 10 days ago, Paul Townend rode her in a piece of work and said: ‘If I’m going to ride one winner this week, it’s going to be Lossiemouth in the mares’ race’ and Willie said: ‘Let’s just try her in cheekpieces in a piece of work.’ “We had a chat last Saturday night and he said the cheekpieces have done the business, hopefully they’ll do it again, let’s go that way. Genius.”
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From the off, it was clear that this was a very different Lossiemouth to the one who had looked so laboured in defeat to Brighterdaysahead in the Irish Champion Hurdle at the Dublin Racing Festival.
As they have done for so many Mullins-trained horses of late, the cheekpieces worked the oracle and Lossiemouth, sent off the 7-5 favourite, was always travelling ominously well and when she hit the front on the home turn there was never any doubt that she would remain there.
“The cheekpieces, I think, made a huge difference,” Mullins said.
“It was an open race and when I put cheekpieces on her the other morning I thought: ‘Wow, that’s the old Lossiemouth’.
“I had a chat with Paul after the piece of work and he thought the same, so I had a quick chat with Rich after racing on Saturday evening and that was literally the first time we’d spoken about it. People think we talk about nothing else but we said we’d leave it until the last minute and that was nearly the last minute.
“It made her concentrate that bit more and, you know, as horses get older they, probably like the rest of us, we start looking for ways out of doing hard work and this really invigorated her.
“When I saw her working in them the other morning and when she pulled up, Paul and I spoke and we both had the same feeling that this was the way to go. And then the race looked so open we thought: Why not, let's go for it.” Why not indeed.
And given Lossiemouth is still only a seven-year-old, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that she could equal or even eclipse Quevega’s remarkable record of six Festival wins.
Mullins said that on what Lossiemouth has achieved to date, it’s already a fair comparison.
“She’s a star mare. Just to come back four years on the trot, never mind win, puts her in a league of her own I think. She’s nearly getting into Quevega territory.
“To win the Champion Hurdle definitely outranks everything else she's done. To come back here four years in a row is an achievement in itself but then to win four years is, she's gone Triumph, Mares’ twice and then this and it’s been superb.”
Townend knew from the get-go that this was a very different Lossiemouth to the one he had partnered at Leopardstown. That Lossiemouth was hard work. This one was thrilling.
“She was much more like herself today than the last day, I knew very early that day that we weren’t going, and I knew very early today that we were.
“She was good today in everything she did. I was just able to put her where I wanted, to go forward when I wanted, come back when I wanted and when I gave her a squeeze she galloped for me.
“That separates the really good ones from the good ones. It's fun, you turn the top of the hill and you're coming down and you're able to hold them and you know the one inside you is going as fast as they can and you're just able to dip them a little bit, it was exhilarating.
“It's a funny place, like it's so straightforward when you're on the best one and it's so hard to ride around here when you're not going as well as the ones around you.
“The likes of her are a pleasure to ride in big races like that. For her to keep coming back and to land the Champion Hurdle on this attempt was brilliant.”
Paying tribute to Mullins, now a six-time Champion Hurdle-winning trainer, Townend added: “It's amazing when you stand next to Willie on the gallops and something goes past him. He'll notice it. He only sees them for a second when they're going by and he sees more than if people were studying the videos for hours. He’s a remarkable man.”
While no match for the winner on the day, Brighterdaysahead ran a fine race in defeat, crossing the line half a length in front of The New Lion.
“She ran a blinder, and that puts the whole ‘doesn't like Cheltenham’ thing to bed,” jockey Jack Kennedy said.
“Over two miles the ground was probably a shade quick for her. It’s not that she doesn’t act on it. She probably just wants further on it. I was happy enough in front. She jumped and travelled and she ran her race.”
That she did. But Lossiemouth and Cheltenham are an irresistible combination.
