Ruby Walsh and Paul Nicholls Celebrate winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup

For this year’s Cheltenham Festival, Systemlays ran for the first time a special Festival Competition which hundreds of you entered online for free. Those numbers are currently being crunched, to work out the list of winners and also-rans in that one, but while we do, we thought we’d let you know the complete results of the Cheltenham Festival 2009 leading jockey and trainer competitions (which this year have been kindly sponsored by Citroen cars).

A special mention must go out to Andy Clifton, the Cheltenham racecourse Communications Manager, who very kindly prepared the full and detailed results lists you see below – thus saving us untold amounts of work.

Citroen Leading Jockey Cheltenham Festival 2009

Ruby Walsh yet again obliterated the field in this year’s Festival leading jockey competition, with a record-breaking 7 wins. Ruby also added two seconds and a third to his impressive tally. The full results read as follows:

• Jockey 1^st 2^nd 3^rd

1. Ruby Walsh 7 2 1

2. Barry Geraghty 3 1 1

3. Tony McCoy 1 1 2

4. Timmy Murphy 1 1 1

5. Davy Russell 1 1 1

6. Paddy Brennan 1 - 1

7. Paddy Flood 1 - 1

8. Wayne Hutchinson 1 - 1

9. Mr Will Biddick 1 - -

10. Mr Richard Burton 1 - -

11. Miss Nina Carberry 1 - -

12. Paul Carberry 1 - -

13. Mr Jamie Codd 1 - -

14. Aidan Coleman 1 - -

15. Felix de Giles 1 - -

16. Tom O’Brien 1 - -

17. Mr Brian O’Connell 1 - -

18. Mr Sam Waley-Cohen 1 - -

19. Robert Thornton - 3 2

20. Mrs Rose Dobbin - 1 1

21. Dominic Elsworth - 1 1

22. Robbie Power - 1 1

23. Mr Danny Cook - 1 -

24. Seamus Durack - 1 -

25. Noel Fehily - 1 -

26. Graham Lee - 1 -

27. Daryl Jacob - 1 -

28. Richard McGrath - 1 -

29. Mr J T McNamara - 1 -

30. Richie McLernon - 1 -

31. Mr Derek O’Connor - 1 -

32. Michael O’Connor - 1 -
    

33. Tom Scudamore - 1 -

34. Sam Thomas - 1 -

35. Miss Charlotte Tizzard - 1 -

36. Liam Treadwell - 1 -

37. Richard Johnson - - 3

38. Alain Cawley - - 1

39. Jack Doyle - - 1

40. Johnny Farrelly - - 1

41. Marcus Foley - - 1
    

42. Andrew McNamara - - 1

43. Emmet Mullins - - 1

44. Mr Kevin Power - - 1

45. Pat Smullen - - 1

46. Mr Sam Twiston-Davies - - 1

And that’s about it. It would seem as though the bookmakers (and most of you) called this one about right, though Robert Thornton and Paul Carberry might have expected higher finishes, a couple of crashing falls put paid to their chances. Its also nice to see the amateur riders sharing the wins around this year.

Citroen Leading Trainer Cheltenham Festival 2009

Paul Nicholls produced yet another masterful training performance, not least to get Denman right after no end of problems to finish second to his stable champion Kauto Star – saddling the first and second in the Gold Cup two years running is a pretty amazing feat. It seemed to be a question of how many P F Nicholls would land this year, not whether! Lets find out:

• Trainer 1^st 2^nd 3^rd

1. Paul Nicholls 5 3 -
2. Nicky Henderson 3 1 3
3. Willie Mullins IRE 3 - 2
4. Venetia Williams 2 2 -
5. Nigel Twiston-Davies 2 - 2
6. Alan King 1 4 3
7. Jonjo O’Neill 1 2 1
8. Enda Bolger IRE 1 1 1
9. Charles Byrnes IRE 1 - -
10. Tom Cooper IRE 1 - -
11. Sheila Crow 1 - -
12. Philip Fenton IRE 1 - -
13. Noel Meade IRE 1 - -
14. Mick Quinlan 1 - -
15. John Quinn 1 - -
16. Tom Taaffe IRE 1 - -
17. David Pipe - 2 1
18. Tony Martin IRE - 1 1
19. Ferdy Murphy - 1 1
20. Nick Williams - 1 1
21. Jessica Harrington IRE - 1 -
22. Charlie Mann - 1 -
23. Neil Mulholland - 1 -
24. Tom Mullins IRE - 1 -
25. Lucinda Russell - 1 -
26. Charles St V Fox - 1 -
27. Tim Vaughan - 1 -
28. Lucy Wadham - 1 -
29. Philip Hobbs - - 3
30. Dessie Hughes IRE - - 1
31. Henrietta Knight IRE - - 1
32. Emma Lavelle - - 1
33. Arthur Moore IRE - - 1
34. Paul Nolan IRE - - 1
35. Eamon O’Connell IRE - - 1
36. Dermot Weld IRE - - 1

Nicky Henderson had a tremendous Festival to wrestle the second spot from the more fancied Willie Mullins team, while Alan King might feel a little disappointed that he was unable to round off his phenominal season with a more successful Festival – though he must have been relieved to get that illusive winner at the very last chance saloon!

Keep checking the site for the competition winners announcement (we’ll email you if you won a prize too!).