One of the most famous traditional moments in sport is the roar which greets the off of the opening race of the annual Cheltenham Festival, the Gr 1 Supreme Novices Hurdle.

Ruby Walsh (www.honestbettingreviews.com)

It will be heard today (Tuesday) at 15h30 South African time live on Tellytrack. The Festival is anticipated for months each season and there can be no other race meeting in the world which generates such excitement and emotion. The opening roar is like a pressure valve release to acknowledge the end of the talking and the beginning of four days of spectacular action.

The Supreme Novice’s Hurdle is one of the meetings most analysed races due to its position on the program. Ruby Walsh and his guv’nor Willie Mullins have each won this race a record six-times. Walsh has won five of the last seven renewals, four of them for Mullins.

This year Mullins has four of the fourteen entries in the two mile and half-a-furlong event. Walsh was yet to have committed to a ride by the time of going to press. However, Mullins expected him to choose Melon, a French-bred five-year-old gelding by Medicean.

Melon won one race on the flat over a mile-and-a-half and won his only hurdles race over two miles at Leopardstown by ten lengths and did it easily.

Tipster Lewis Jones said about Melon, “Mullins has been unusually bullish, going on record stating that he’s well ahead of stablemate Bunk Off Early in terms of homework, which backs up the Autumn vibes that this horse blitzes the gallops at Closutton.”

By David Thiselton