Hurricane Fly best given a wide berth - for now
I watched that Champion Hurdle through binoculars and distinctly remember putting down the piece of equipment in frustration when Hurricane Fly hit his infamous flat spot at the far side of the track.
To my eyes, he was starting to drop back through the field and all chance of victory seemed to be gone.
A couple of hundred yards later, however, everything changed as he suddenly, dramatically and delightfully came alive in Ruby Walsh’s hands.
Indeed, as they headed down hill to the home turn, he was back on the bridle and hope was again alive and kicking. In the end he proved a decisive enough winner, but to this day I can never quite work out how Hurricane Fly managed it.
So extraordinary was the whole thing that there was almost a sense of guilt when getting paid. Yeah, yeah, okay there wasn’t.
Hurricane Fly then came back to Ireland and never even hinted at hitting a flat spot when cruising to victory at the Punchestown festival.
He is an amazing horse, with a great spring to him, is game, stays and possesses a fine turn of foot.
But the Hurricane Fly that turned up in the Morgiana Hurdle at Punchestown last Sunday was but a pale version of the horse we have come to love and admire.
Willie Mullins described it as “one of his least impressive performances’’ and you just couldn’t quibble with such an assessment.
He beat Marito by a length and a quarter and didn’t seem to have much more than that under the bonnet.
When you consider Marito is rated 37lbs behind Hurricane Fly then that puts matters into perspective.
Of course the horse is capable of making a lot of improvement as the season progresses and is in the hands of a master trainer.
But next year’s Champion Hurdle currently shapes as one of the hottest for a long time and right now you would not want to be with Hurricane Fly. We know he will be campaigned exclusively here at home and, at some stage, will surely run into Jezki, or Our Conor or Annie Power, or maybe all three.
Now if he began to kick then out of the way then, perhaps, we might be persuaded to row in with him one more time. But we will take a fair bit of persuading.
Those of us who hadn’t lost faith in Don Cossack - there were plenty who had - have to finally accept that there is more hype than substance to the imposing six-year-old.
Don Cossack did prove somewhat disappointing as he progressed over hurdles, but was expected to come into his own over fences - and over a trip.
Well the evidence of his half a length defeat by Morning Assembly at Punchestown told us that, while’s he’s undoubtedly a useful horse, is a long way short of shaping like a potential champion.
At Punchestown, he had Morning Assembly beaten for most of the straight and jumped the final fence better than his opponent.
But, not for the first time, when it came to getting down and dirty, he was found wanting and out-battled.
Certainly, Don Cossack did not give the impression of being a thorough stayer and the two miles and six seemed as far as he wanted to go. You could even argue that a drop in distance would work to his advantage.
Willie Mullins’ ability to source really good horses in the making is quite uncanny. There were two examples that seriously illustrated the point at Cork last weekend, Valseur Lido and Rathvinden.
Valseur Lido, who arrived from France as a bumper winner, gave a superb display of jumping to win a maiden hurdle unextended by 13 lengths. He could literally be anything.
But Rathvinden in the bumper simply took the biscuit. He came out of a good academy in Ian Ferguson’s, but as regards form in the book brought little to the table.
He did take a bumper at Downpatrick in June, but subsequent events indicated that was rather a dismal contest.
But Rathvinden shaped at Cork as if possessing a savage engine and the way he destroyed horses who were a long way removed from being the worst in the world was impressive.
And just a word about one that didn’t half catch the eye at Punchestown: Colm Murphy’s Marlbrook.
He might have eventually been beaten 19 lengths into third behind Champagne Fever in a beginners chase, but it was still a cracking effort. He went to Punchestown on the back of winning a point-to-point and a poor maiden hurdle and, for a horse with so little experience, this was a smashing effort.
