Ruby Walsh: Henderson must call on all his experience and bravery with Constitution Hill

RACE AGAINST TIME: Trainer Nicky Henderson, with Constitution Hill, will have to be brave enough to wait and see if his prize horse will come right in time for Cheltenham. Pic: David Davies

LAST Tuesday morning, as we walked back from the second lot on Willie Mullins’s gallop, something was up in the world. 

Not the real world, but the horse racing world, that is. Phones buzzed, and the group splintered as everyone checked what was happening before joining again to verify that we all had the same news.

Constitution Hill had worked like a snail at Kempton, and the word spread like wildfire. Willie Mullins took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as he watched 20 of his stable stars walk down the avenue in front of him. 

“There they go by the grace of God. It could be us tomorrow,” was how he greeted the news about the long-term favourite who stood firmly in his path of winning a fifth champion hurdle.

There was no gloating or sign of an opportunity, just the stark reality that horse racing fans could be talking about him and one of his stars next. He didn’t even mention or think of what it meant for State Man and his chance at Cheltenham, but more took it as a warning to be grateful his squad had clocked off
another day of work without a hiccup and were one day closer to their target.

Still, you knew his tone. He expects a kick in the teeth in the next nine days, a blow that will hurt him and make him worry like Nicky Henderson was last Tuesday morning.

The closer you get, the nearer you are, but the further away you will be if something goes wrong.

Fourteen days from D-day meant Nicky had time to rectify the issue. To trawl through his mind and repeat a training feat he has probably achieved before — time to call on all his experience and bravery.

Thursday’s blood test results won’t have helped, but it is what it is. The longer he leaves Constitution Hill idle, the quicker he will recover. Too long, though, and his fitness will wane, too little and his sickness will resurface. 

The biggest issue here is that the patient can’t talk, so this is where training racehorses will always be an art and never a science.

How he eats, the look in his eye, the shine of his coat and waiting for a buck or some bit of devilment that will show Nicky he is well again is the game the master of Seven
Barrows is playing with Constitution Hill. Only, it’s one with a time limit and calling it too soon is the crime, but being brave enough to wait is torture.

That news was greeted differently in each section of the racing fanbase, and the section leading the charge to kick the life out of the Cheltenham Festival reacted with glee. The jealous and bitter took to the safe haven of social media and volunteered options that are sometimes best kept to oneself or shared on a barstool with those you know.

Putting it out there for the world to read only reveals one’s identity and train of thought and makes you hope you don’t know any of those hiding behind the pseudonyms. Those you know have long since revealed their true personality, for the better or worse.

I don’t get the fashion to be negative, constantly moaning about everything you don’t like and how little people seem to be looking at what might excite them. Maybe there is nothing for some people to look forward to, and what a dull life that must be, but, for me, I firmly believe there will be excitement in nine days.

Never in the history of the Cheltenham Festival have all the favourites won, and if you believe now you can predict precisely what will happen because it is so transparent, then you should be a millionaire in 13 days. I don’t know, but I wish I did. With the belief that life is more fun if the glass is half full, here are a raft of questions I can’t wait to get the answer to.

Ballyburn can only win once, so what wins wherever he doesn’t? Tullyhill, Mystical Power, Firefox, Jeriko Du Reponet or even Mistergif in the Supreme? Or Slade Steel, Ile Atlantique or Readin Tommy Wrong in the Baring Bingham?

Can Marine Nationale really bounce back from the Dublin Racing Festival, and has Nicky cured Constitution Hill? Will Lossiemouth stay? I think she will, but would I bet my life on it? No, and could Emmet Mullins spoil his uncle’s party in the National Hunt Chase with Corbetts Cross? He sure could.

Will Fact To File have too many gears for Stay Away Fay in the Brown Advisory, or could Henry de Bromhead just have his string firing on the right week, like before, and Monty’s Star downs the pair of them? 

Never since I started riding have all the big guns run to form in a Brown Advisory, so why will these three? And which one blows out? Willie has nine in the bumper, so what will Gordon win it with?

Grey Dawning versus Ginny’s Destiny versus Facile Vega or Gaelic Warrior versus Iroko? Please send answers in a stamped, addressed envelope so I can send you a percentage. As for the Ryanair Chase and the Stayers’ Hurdle. 

I don’t see an Allaho or Big Buck’s among the entries, so finding the winners is not obvious, and maybe that’s why people are moaning.

Brighterdaysahead versus Jade De Grugy and Dysart Enos is another foregone conclusion … if you have a crystal ball.

The way I see all this, people could be delighted to see Sir Gino coming on Friday for some respite. As they will Dinoblue if Galopin Des Champs hasn’t retained his Gold Cup crown. 

But what I see are four great days of racing, four days where the unexpected will happen, and four days where only two performances each day will blow you away — if you are lucky.

That’s what hasn’t changed in the history of this meeting: It never was all magic, but when the world chose to be positive, we only remembered the magic.

I wish the world was still like that.