Five things we learned this week
1 Dunguib is still good but perhaps not the superstar we hoped. Brian O’Connell may still be.
IF, like me, you find John McCririck about as appealing as sitting through repeats of Friends, you’ll probably have been appalled by his comments about Brian O’Connell and Tuesday’s defeat of Dunguib.
Perhaps the progressive young jockey might have done things differently given the chance to ride the race again but the cold facts are that Dunguib was produced with a chance which, like it or not, he was unable to take.
Whatever your opinion of the ride it’s a fact that this was not the worst ride of the week, let alone the season. It’s fine to argue that having an experienced pilot might have been the difference between winning and losing, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s correct.
Richard Johnson can boast a very successful week but I recall a time when he was the rising star amongst English jockeys and he gave hot favourite Mr Mulligan what I would consider a poor ride in the 1996 RSA Chase. He never rode the horse again and the horse went on to win the following year’s Gold Cup under Tony McCoy.
That experience didn’t stop Johnson becoming one of the best and I suspect that, regardless of whether he was right or wrong aboard Dunguib, it won’t stunt the growth of O’Connell. He’s a young jockey with the time and the potential to go to the top but, like his mount, he’s not there yet.
2 Sisters can do it for themselves
RUBY Walsh was odds-on to retain his title as top jockey of the Festival but on this occasion the man who won the trophy four times in the last six years only just managed to be crowned top jockey in his family.
Younger sister Katie Walsh may not have had the high profile opportunities of her sibling but she produced two of the best riding performances of the week when steering Poker Di Sivola to victory in the four-mile National Hunt Chase and Thousand Stars in the Vincent O’Brien County Hurdle.
We’ve become accustomed to seeing Nina Carberry, sister of Paul and Philip, in the Cheltenham winner’s enclosure but this week she was overshadowed. She and Katie dominated the National Hunt Chase but the Walsh kids are hard to beat when catching sight of the hill and two wins from two runs is an exceptional return for a top professional let alone an amateur.
The ladies will struggle forever if this week doesn’t prompt an increased demand for their services, for there can be no doubt that these sisters showed that they’re more than capable of doing it for themselves.
3 Our Novice Hurdlers are not as good as we thought they were
TAKE nothing from Berties Dream’s victory in the Albert Bartlett but it did little to allay the sense that our novice hurdlers just aren’t as good as we thought they were. It was terrific to see Paul Gilligan’s gelding out-battle Najaf up the hill but his 33-1 success did little to mask the fact that the novice hurdlers have been the disappointment of the week for the travelling contingent.
Dunguib was the mostly costly failure but he wasn’t alone in finding the home team too good. Blackstairmountain toiled further behind in the same race and there was further woe in the Neptune.
Rite Of Passage was a very well-backed favourite to recoup the previous day’s losses but he was unable to sustain his effort up the hill. Summit Meeting and Quel Esprit (twice) also failed to live up to expectations and it begs the question of where next year’s championship hurdlers will come from.
4 Past performance is no guarantee of future success
IT’S a sentiment that those in the financial sector are at pains to impress upon investors but those of us who enjoy the turbulence of the equine gambling arena are often oblivious to the facts. ‘Horses are not machines’ is a bon mot of jockey Ruby Walsh but it takes events like the Chelten- ham Festival we’ve just experienced to reiterate it in the minds of form students. Even allowing the possibility of a sub-par run, it was difficult to see Kauto Star out of the frame in yesterday’s Gold Cup but some pre-race sweating, an eighth fence mistake and a couple of reminders later he was all but a spent force.
Equally, Master Minded was reportedly back to his best for Wednesday’s Champion Chase but he was one of the first of the fancied runners to come under pressure and he trailed in a well-beaten fourth.
Festival form is still the most reliable key to a successful week for punters but the last four days served plenty of reminders that there are no guarantees.
5 Numbers mean little to punters unless they’re the right ones
AFTER four days of festivities, the Irish haul numbered seven winners from 26 races. That stands up to comparison with previous seasons but masks a meeting that proved very tough for Irish punters.
Sizing Europe (6-1), A New Story (25-1), Quevega (6-4f), Weapon’s Amnesty (12-1), Big Zeb (10-1), Thousand Stars (20-1) and Berties Dream (33-1) all obliged for Irish trainers but how many of those were received with sincere appreciation by the travelling punters convention?
Only Quevega managed to justify favouritism and that did little to assuage the pain caused by the beatings dished out to Dunguib, Captain Cee Bee, Go Native, Garde Champetre, Rite Of Passage, Deutschland, Shot From The Hip and Carlito Brigante, all of whom were sent off favourite to win their respective races. Seven winners might be a fine return but was it a good result? I argue, no.
