At the 2024 Cheltenham Festival just 20 months ago, the Mares Hurdle was won in electric style by Golden Ace. So easily was the mare travelling jumping the second last,  Lorcan Williams - clearly knowing he had plenty of horse and not wanting to hit the front too soon - confidently took a pull on her, as they galloped away from it. She ran on tenaciously up the Cheltenham hill in thought provoking style, to beat the highly regarded odds on favourite Brighterdaysahead convincingly.

That performance alone marked her as a hugely talented racehorse.

Twelve months later and sent off at a generous 25-1, the mare won an incident packed Champion Hurdle, most thought, by benefiting from the falls of both Constitution Hill and State Man. We will never know if she would have beaten those two if they had stood up, but what we do know is that she had the rest of the runners completely cooked, and she wasn't stopping as she galloped strongly up the hill to hit the line hard.

Despite Jeremy Scott and his team believing that they may well have been fortunate that day, they kept the faith enough to keep her at the highest level by entering her in the Fighting Fifth, to once again take on Constitution Hill and the much touted The New Lion.

We all saw what happened. 22-1 was a gift of a price. Golden Ace had a solid excuse for her seasonal reappearance at 4-11 as she scoped dirty that day.  Given the huge question mark over Constitution Hill, and it being the first runs of the season for The New Lion and Anzadam, off the track for eight and ten months respectively, there had to be every chance that the talented mare would place in the first two. With The New Lion running and jumping like a grass green horse who was on his first visit to a racecourse rather than the winner of five previous races in a row, the race certainly was not decided when he came down at the second last, and the mare looked to many like she had plenty more in the tank at the time. She galloped hard up the Cheltenham hill and hit the line impressively. 

Golden Ace's record now stands at eight victories from fourteen career starts, including wins at 18-1, 10-1, 25-1, and 10-1. Backing her consistently would have yielded over 80 points profit. The evidence suggests this remarkable mare is now due recognition commensurate with her talent.

Hats off to you and your connections, Golden Ace.