Superpowers fork out a festival fortune - but it's money well spent

The extent to which a small handful of operations spend big in order to win big at the Cheltenham Festival has been highlighted by data showing the sport's three biggest owners have collectively already forked out more than £200,000 to enter and confirm horses at jumping's standout meeting.

A study of all entry and forfeit payments made before declarations reveals the influence exerted by Gigginstown House Stud, JP McManus and Rich Ricci.

Between them, the three owners, predominantly represented by horses trained in Ireland save for those belonging to McManus in Britain, spent £200,706 on entry and pre-declaration acceptance fees, equivalent to 22 per cent of payments made by all owners across the same stages.

The principal spender was Gigginstown's Michael O'Leary, whose outlay totalled £83,045 (9.01 per cent of the festival's total entry and acceptance fees), compared to the £75,905 (8.23 per cent) spent by McManus and the £41,756 (4.53 per cent) invested by Ricci on his Willie Mullins-trained stars.

Cheltenham's receipts from Ricci would have gone up by another £20,000 had Limini been supplemented for the Champion Hurdle.

Rich Ricci and J P McManus embrace after filling the first two places in last year's Champio HurdleCredit: Edward Whitaker

In terms of individual entry numbers, there is a dead-heat between Gigginstown and McManus, both of whom were responsible for an initial 160 entries across the 28 races, many more than Ricci who had 71 entries.

Looking at the fixture's five principal championship races, the three operations have spent £27,885 on the Timico Cheltenham Gold Cup alone. That means their fees come in at 35 per cent of the total received for the event. At 37 per cent, they had an even bigger impact on the Stan James Champion Hurdle.

History does, however, suggest this is all money well spent. When adding on the two supplementary entries received for this year's festival, there is an overall prize fund of £4,327,520. Gigginstown have already coughed up 1.92 per cent of that amount, with McManus's contribution equalling 1.75 per cent and Ricci laying out 0.96 per cent.

Yet 12 months ago, Gigginstown won £685,843 - a hefty chunk of which came from Don Cossack's Gold Cup triumph - with McManus landing £412,875 and Ricci, whose horses run in wife Susannah's name, £771,779.

As such, the fact they have this year gambled just over £200,000 between them would appear to make eminently good sense.

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