Graham’s Paddy’s Day glee
After scoring five winners on the first two days, there was genuine anticipation among the green masses that they could possibly rack up at least as many as the record of eight set in 1958. With it being St. Patrick's Day as well, there was an even greater spring in the step of the punting Paddy.
But, after the Ladbroke World Hurdle when Graham Wylie's Inglis Drever finally shattered the Baracouda legend, Graham Lee was by far the happiest Irishman in the place, having racked up a third winner to bolster his chances of winning the Festival jockey's title.
"I was a Cheltenham virgin on Monday, so I must be a slapper now," the Galway born Lee laughed after what was the latest in a long line of big race victories which began with the Aintree Grand National last April and culminated yesterday with victory in one of the four Cheltenham 'classics.'
Almost every other Irish hope in the race rested on Willie Mullins' Rule Supreme as many punters sought something which might crack the JP McManus-owned and French trained Baracouda, a winner in this race in 2002 and 2003 and regarded as one of the best staying hurdlers ever.
Having agonised over which race to race Rule Supreme in the choice lay between the World Hurdle and the Gold Cup Mullins finally plumped for yesterday's feature event when it appeared he would get the softer going to suit him.
However, yesterday's shirt sleeve weather was not what Rule Supreme wanted and, having trailed home in third place Mullins ruefully admitted "that's as good as he is on this ground."
For Lee, though, a man who to many had been lost on Britain's secondary Northern racing circuit for too long, Inglis Drever gave him the ammunition to reinforce the view that the axis of himself, Wylie and trainer Howard Johnson are now a force to be reckoned with in all big races.
Although photographers had to implore the notoriously grumpy Johnson to smile at the presentation ceremony, there was no masking the trainer's satisfaction at having proved his detractors wrong. And, in an ironic twist to the tale, it should also be noted that their big race winner yesterday was merely the 'stand-in' as the team's original plan was to run the expensively purchased Royal Rosa (rumoured to have cost some £340,000) in this race.
Royal Rosa was injured however, and Inglis Drever was entered in his stead and proved to be a worthy replacement even though Lee felt he had not travelled well throughout the three-mile contest.
"I had to give him two belts early in the race to make him realise that it was Cheltenham," Lee recounted. "He was just never travelling right, but he has a heart as big as this winners' enclosure and he is a real cool dude."
Lee and Inglis Drever were beaten into second in the Royal and SunAlliance Novices' Hurdle here last year after the horse clattered the final fence and tore off a racing shoe, but Lee reckoned justice had now been done.
"To be beaten on him last year was a real sickener and I could hardly look Graham or Howard in the eye after it. I took it very bad, but to win this one was just great and it puts everything right. Even so, he didn't run well and didn't jump particularly well, but I got him into a sort of a pocket before the turn into the home straight and that pulled him along. In fact when he really got going, I thought I'd hit the front too soon, but he held on brilliantly. I'm delighted for the horse he's real tough," Lee recalled.
Johnson reflected how he was a reluctant trainer for Wylie's expensive purchases. "I'm a sheep and cattle farmer as much as a trainer. I thought, I'm 52 and ought to be winding down, but Graham encouraged me to get more involved and, though I was reluctant, my wife Sue said 'go for it Howard, I like to wear big hats.'
And so we now know that it was a penchant for overbearing millenary that kick-started a team which is rapidly becoming the envy of the whole racing world and the bane of many Irishmen with one notable exception.
