Jonbon’s last roll of the Cheltenham dice comes not in the Champion Chase, but in the Ryanair Chase, and, for once, the story feels bigger than the betting slip.
Few modern chasers have a Festival record quite like Jonbon’s: consistently excellent, never quite enough.
Second to Constitution Hill in the 2022 Supreme, second again to El Fabiolo in the 2023 Arkle, forced to miss the 2024 Champion Chase when Nicky Henderson pulled his team, and runner‑up once more in the 2025 Champion Chase after a messy standing start left him playing catch‑up.
It is not that Cheltenham “finds him out” – being chased home by that lot is hardly a mark of failure – but the March box remains stubbornly unticked on a CV that otherwise looks close to complete.
Away from the Festival, he has been a model of reliability. Multiple Grade 1 wins, including the Shloer at Cheltenham in 2024, the Tingle Creek at Sandown and the Clarence House at Ascot, underline that he is no nearly horse.
He is a genuine star who just happens to keep running into one too good on the biggest week of the year.
That’s how you end up with a ten‑year‑old boasting more than twenty wins, a string of top‑level successes, and, somehow, a reputation for unfinished business.
A Late Switch and a Shrinking Price
The original plan, at least in public, was that Jonbon might skip Cheltenham and head straight to Aintree, where the Melling Chase has always looked tailor‑made.
Henderson admitted they were “umming and ahhing” about even coming, only to be persuaded by how well the horse was training at home.
“He’s just so well that you couldn’t leave him behind,” was the line that probably launched a hundred overnight bets and helped his price shorten as the public decided this might finally be his year.
That drift‑then‑crunch in the market fits the mood. Fact To File still heads the betting as the defending champion and ratings pick, but the gap has closed, and Jonbon’s support has become as emotional as it is analytical.
Racing fans know his story inside out now: one of the best two‑mile chasers of his generation, never out of the first two in his life, turning up for a new trip and one last big swing at the Festival hoodoo.
Why The Ryanair Might Finally Be His Race
Stepping up to 2m4½f at ten could look like a Plan B; in reality, it might be the small tweak that puts the pieces together.
Over two miles at the Festival, he has often found the tempo relentless from flagfall, forced to use his energy simply to hold position before being outfinished by a monster in the final 200 yards.
In the Ryanair Chase, the test is a little less about raw two‑mile speed and a little more about rhythm, jumping, and maintaining a strong gallop up the hill.
Jonbon has those tools, and he proved it by winning the Grade 1 Ascot Chase (2m5f) in February.
At his best, he jumps low and fast, travels kindly, and can control a race from the front or just behind the pace, and Henderson has been clear that they expect him to stay the trip just fine.
Coming here instead of facing speedier types over two miles feels less like ducking a fight and more like aiming at a race that plays to what he is now, not what he was at six or seven.
Fact To File and The Supporting Cast
Of course, fairy tales still have to get past form figures. Fact To File is back to defend his crown and arrives with so-so form.
He may be last year’s Ryanair winner, but he was walloped in the Champion Chase at Punchestown in April (38L by Marine Nationale), returned this season to be beaten by a neck by Gaelic Warrior, and could only finish sixth in the King George.
Yes, he went on to win the Irish Gold Cup in convincing style, and yes, the Ryanair Chase is shorter, and yes, connections nearly added him to the Gold Cup…but is that enough to justify even odds in a week where more than a few ‘favourites’ have come undone?
Then there are the others who threaten to spoil the script for everyone. Banbridge is a very smart 2m4f chaser in his own right, with a King George second on his recent CV.
Impaire Et Passe, another from the Mullins battalion, has long looked a natural for this sort of distance. Heart Wood, JPR One and the rest add depth and different tactical possibilities, from pace pressure to late closers aiming for the frame.
Against that backdrop, Jonbon is not being gifted a softer option; he is being asked a different question by a very good race.
His supporters will argue that this is exactly what he needs: an emphasis on rhythm rather than pure zip, and the chance to use his experience to control the situation rather than react to it.
Henderson, McManus, and the Fairytale
Part of the fascination here is that both main protagonists run in the same famous colours. JP McManus owns Fact To File, the emerging superstar with back‑to‑back Festival wins on the line, and Jonbon, the established champion everywhere but in March.
Even within the owner’s camp, there is a sense that Jonbon is the sentimental choice: a 12‑time Grade 1 winner searching for the line that says “Cheltenham Festival winner” on his page before he heads towards the twilight of his career.
Henderson has made no secret of how much this would mean to him. He knows the stats – only a handful of ten‑year‑olds have won the Ryanair – but talks about this being his “dearest wish” for a horse who has carried the Seven Barrows flag with such consistency.
Can He Finally Do It?
So we come back to the central question: can Jonbon finally win at Cheltenham?
For the horse racing purists, Fact To File is the one they all have to beat and the likeliest winner; that is just how the numbers fall.
But racing is not run entirely in spreadsheets, and the case for Jonbon is quietly persuasive: a new trip that may play more to his strengths and a horse who has never finished worse than second in his life.
If this is to be the fairytale, it probably looks like him jumping into a rhythm near the front, using his experience to stay out of trouble, and then finding enough up the hill to fend off Fact To File and company in the final 100 yards.
Whether that image becomes reality is what makes the 2026 Ryanair Chase so compelling. For me, it is a race where the heart and the head are not quite in open disagreement, but are certainly backing different shades of green and gold.
BETFRED
