Ruby Walsh: Majborough impossible to oppose but there's real value in Saint Baco

BIRTHDAY CHEER: Groom Katie Young and owner JP McManus after Saratoga won the McCoy Contractors Juvenile Handicap Hurdle on day one of the Cheltenham Festival. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

SOLVING day two puzzles at the Cheltenham Festival is no midnight run. It begins as yesterday did — a novice hurdle followed by a novice chase, with even bigger fields to contend with than on day one.

For some unexplainable reason, I have drifted off No Drama This End in the opener. I really like him and think he will be a star of the future but I don’t believe today will be his day, and the volume and quality of the Irish challenge will overpower him.

Willie has an army led by King Rasco Grey and supported by Sober, Sortudo, and Saint Baco. Gordon unleashes Ballyfad and Skylight Hussle, and Declan Queally and Tom Cooper come to the party with I’ll Sort That and Shuttle Diplomacy. Nicky has Act of Innocence, and Dan relies on Bossman Jack, so this is a real contest where more dreams will be shattered than legacies built.

I think the bookies will get a result, so going back to November time, when the geese start to become swans on the Closutton gallops, Saint Baco stood out to me. He duly obliged at Navan but blew out in tornado-like fashion at Naas, which was too bad to be true. 

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He was ill in the days after that flop and, in a contest where so many could win, I think his huge price offers real value.

The Brown Advisory was supposed to be redemption for Final Demand 12 months on from his Turners upset. While that looked on the cards when he won at Navan in November, it has looked less likely since and the parachuting of Romeo Coolio into this contest makes the task even harder for him. 

Gordon Elliott’s star novice chaser looked electric in the Drinmore in December but has only looked workmanlike down in trip at Leopardstown on two occasions since. Stepping up to three miles and one furlong is a bold move by the Cullentra team but it could be an inspirational one.

The Bet MGM Hurdle was never my favourite as a jockey, and the 22-runner bumper car contest always required too much luck for my liking. The helter-skelter dash to the first bend is not for the faint-hearted, so more than one docket could be required here to turn a profit, and two Willie Mullins horses offer great each-way value. Storm Hearted did well to win over two miles at Gowran last time out, and he will relish the extra distance. 

One who is even less exposed is Kopek De Mee. He raced far too keenly in the early exchanges of last year’s Martin Pipe, and his chasing career ended this term quickly when he fell first time out. That said, he has been pleasing on the eye of late in his work and, at a reasonable each-way price, he could be worth a chance.

Favori De Champdou will be all the rage in the cross-country chase but the eight-pound penalty he got for winning here in January makes him a little less appealing. 

This is about the only handicap run at the festival that doesn’t have unexposed horses, as the younger ones don’t tend to try it, so horses falling in the weights can have a real chance. Fakir D’Oudairies fits that bill, having been once rated in the mid-160s; he has fallen to 147 and has moved yards to the once-time king of the banks, Enda Bolger. At a big price, he’ll do me each-way.

Majborough is impossible to get away from in the Champion Chase, with the application of cheek pieces seeming to have turned him inside out at the DRF. With his mind focused on the job, he looked a different horse at Leopardstown, and I can’t oppose him, but in the betting without markets, Quilixios could interest me as his trainer, Henry de Bromhead, has an excellent record in this contest, and Quilixios would have been second last year. He has been off the track since but, overall, he does have a good record fresh.

Break My Soul could be of small interest in the Grand Annual at 4.40, which looks wide open, and the concluding bumper looks like an Irish-dominated affair between Willie and Gordon. Quiryn looks the ideal type on pedigree to handle a sound surface but a big negative for him is that he is only a four-year-old, so he will have to be of a Cue Card standard to collect this. The Irish Avatar would be the form choice but the noises from Cullentra suggest Keep Him Company is the one to be with.

The roar and the charge, yet there was no early drama in the Supreme, but a mistake at the last for Sober Glory swung the balance in favour of Old Park Star, and the wheels were back on the chariot when the British horses filled the first four places in the opener.

What ensued was an avalanche of support for Lulamba as he usurped Kopek Des Bordes for favouritism in the Arkle but Danny Mullins didn’t read anyone’s script but his own and controlled the race from the off on Kargese. 

He slowed it all down and turned it into a dash, where the emphasis was jumping over the last two fences, and Kargese’s held up best. Saratoga never looked anything other than the winner for most of the Fred Winter under Mark Walsh and, as is the norm, the Ultima went to a British-trained horse, with Johnnywho repelling the challenge of Jagwar.

At 3.55, the Champion Hurdle field made its way to the start and, after a couple of efforts to get it under way, it began at a crawl, and Lossiemouth was the one you wanted to be on. She got into a rhythm and the worries I had about her being taken off her feet never materialised. 

She travelled like a dream in the slipstream of Brighterdaysahead and was home for all money when she sprinted off the bend and left her rivals in her wake. She is a diamond.