Celestial Tune
Celestial Tune was impressive in winning the bumper at Cheltenham on Saturday. She did have the run of the race admittedly. She led from flagfall in a race that was not run at a strong pace. Her rider Sean Bowen was able to dictate tepid early fractions and he had her well positioned at the head of the field when the sprint for home developed. That said, she picked up impressively when she was asked for her effort, she put a distance of ground between herself and her rivals, and she kept on strongly up the hill to win nicely. Significantly, she was fastest of all through the final three furlongs. Rock Sensation was the filly who caught the eye in finishing from the rear, but, while it wasn't apparent on watching the race live, Celestial Tune was almost 0.3secs faster than her through the final section of the race.
Tom Cooper's filly is building up a really nice profile now. Bought by Bryan Cooper at the Derby Sale, she was impressive in winning a bumper at the Listowel Festival in September, this was a step forward from that and, in winning impressively, she proved her aptitude for Cheltenham and for soft ground. The winner of this race last year, Seo Linn, won the Grade 2 mares' bumper at Aintree in April on her next run, and that race is obviously a potential target for Celestial Tune too. But connections also mentioned the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham as a possible target too, and that makes lots of sense. We know that she can operate at Cheltenham, and she would be in receipt of 7lb from the geldings, and three of the last 10 renewals of the Champion Bumper were won by mares. Only 19 of the 196 runners in the Champion Bumper in that time were fillies or mares, so they have won 30% of the renewals from less than 10% of the representatives.
Cheltenham, 15th November 2025
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