Defending champion Wonderwall heads 14 Irish entries for Cheltenham

Image © Healy Racing

The first three horses home in last year’s Festival Challenge Cup Hunters’ Chase head a renewed Irish challenge for the 2026 renewal, with a total of 35 entries having been made for the March 13th contest.

The Irish challenge accounts for 14 possible runners, up from 12 entries in 2025 and eight in 2024, and it includes the defending champion Wonderwall, who will bid to become the tenth horse since 1946, and first since Pacha Du Polder in 2018, to win the blue ribbon race of the hunter chase season for a second time.

Now a ten-year-old, the Yeats gelding remains unbeaten since joining Sam Curling in 2024, and he made a winning return to action at Dromahane in early November, defeating Bartlemy Boy by two and a half lengths.

Owned by John O’Leary, he is one of three entries for Curling, as the Tipperary handler could also saddle Wrappedupinmay and the leading mare The Great Unknown. 

The former has won back-to-back open races at Dromahane and Carrigarostig since joining the Skehanagh Stables team from Paul Nicholls, whilst his stablemate, The Great Unknown, is four from four this season, and could attempt to extend that winning run at Ballycahane on Sunday.

Its On The Line came within a neck of snatching victory last year, and the nine-year-old will seek to translate three second-place finishes at Cheltenham into a first Foxhunters win for owner JP McManus, since On The Fringe’s second triumph ten years ago.

Emmet Mullins recently elected to bypass a possible run at Oldtown following its postponement, instead opting to go straight to the festival.

Martin Brassil’s Panda Boy is the only horse to have won two Irish hunter chases this season, following back-to-back successes at Thurles and Naas to secure his passage to Cheltenham, where he will be joined by Con’s Roc, who won a hunter chase at Fairyhouse in November for Terence O’Brien.

Willitgoahead finished third in last year’s renewal on what was his first run for Gordon Elliott, and the Meath trainer could be doubly represented, as he has also entered Chemical Energy, who also hold alternative entries in both the Cross Country and Kim Muir at the Festival.

The remaining Irish entries are last year’s sixth Carnfunnock (Stuart Crawford), Asphalt Cowboy (Sonny Carey), King Alex (Garrett Ahern), Kings Jet (Cormac Farrell), Ryehill (Ross O’Sullivan), and Solitary Man (Enda Bolger).