The comeback King
Seventeen days ago his owner Conor Clarkson was in Spain when he received a text message from trainer Tom Taaffe that Kicking King’s Gold Cup hopes had perished as a result of the horse having scoped badly.
Yesterday the horse defied not only the veterinary prognosis, but the doubts of many that he had the capacity to last the testing three miles, two furlong trip of Chasing’s blue riband race. He also helped lift the Irish challenge at the meeting to a record nine wins. And, in doing so, he became only the fourth horse to win both the Gold Cup and the King George, joining Desert Orchid, Best Mate and Arkle.
The latter, of course, is inextricably linked with the Taaffe name, Tom’s father Pat having ridden Tom Dreaper’s legendary chaser to all his major race successes. Thus it was with deep pride that Kicking King’s handler re-acquainted the family with Gold Cup glory.
He now has the youth and potential to emulate both Best Mate and Arkle by winning this race three times.
Jim Lewis, Best Mate’s owner, who was so disappointed by his own horse’s failure to make this race after bursting a blood vessel, was in the winners’ enclosure to welcome the new champion home and was unstinting in his praise.
“He won that like a good horse would, he travelled well throughout, jumped brilliantly and picked up the pace at the top of the hill to leave the rest of them pretty much in his wake. That was very impressive,” said Lewis adding, jokingly: “It will be some dead heat next year between himself and my horse.”
For the connections, however, there was an air of disbelief with manner in which Kicking King dismantled the best chasers in these islands, with the only challenge coming from an unexpected quarter in the shape of Peter Bowen’s Take The Stand.
Tom Taaffe though was pragmatic about the chain of events which had led to his charge’s famous victory. “I can say it now, but I don’t think this was the highest class Gold Cup, but you still have to run round and jump. It’s my legs were shaking when he jumped the last, but I always said he’d get the trip and he certainly did.
“We sent him to the King George to see if he’d stay and if he hadn’t made a terrible mistake at the last in that race, then he’d have won by 10 lengths. I knew then he’d get the Gold Cup trip.”
The thing was that with all the preparations having gone so well in the run-up to Cheltenham, everything suddenly then went pear-shaped.
As Conor Clarkson recalled, he thought the dream was over for at least another year.
“I was driving along the motorway in Spain when I got the text from Tom and we both thought we’d have to wait for next year. But the horse came right very quickly and he’s only seven, so who knows what will happen now,” he said. “He is the same age as Arkle and Best Mate were when they won the Gold Cup for the first time, so the future looks good.”
Taaffe recalled how exactly the miracle had come about.
“The horse told me he wanted to come here. He wasn’t a runner two-and-a-half weeks ago, but I rode him myself at home, then schooled him and I decided that if he scoped well then he could run. I had thought about using antibiotics, but decided to let nature take its course,” he said.
The trainer, who never had a festival success during his own career as a jockey, felt when the horse got sick that fates were against him. “I’m delighted the Taaffe name is back on the roll of honour and I’m sorry for Best Mate’s connections that he couldn’t run, but if anyone was going to stop Henrietta Knight’s horse, it was the Taaffe name, especially to protect Arkle.
“My son Pat was born the day this horse won at Leopardstown and I said that now we had the new Pat Taaffe, all we needed was the new Arkle.”
The Gold Cup story was not quite over for the Irish however, as the long-time ante post favourite Beef or Salmon ran disappointingly and was eventually pulled up. Jockey Paul Carbery reported later that the Michael Hourigan trained horse had never recovered from a bad mistake at the first fence and never got into the race.
Nevertheless Kicking King’s victory brought the Irish total to eight winners and an hour later, Paul Carberry rode the Mouse Morris trained and JP McManus owned Fota Island to victory in the Grand Annual Chase to break a record which had stood since 1958.
On top of that, the Irish ended up winning three of the four championship races: Hardy Eustace (Champion Hurdle), Moscow Flyer (Champion Chase) and Kicking King (Gold Cup), while Graham Lee added the jockey’s title to the Irish roll of honour.
