‘Where’s your super horse now?’
And that from a man whose horse finished second.
With their distinctive red-and-white Sunderland scarves, the connections of Forpadydeplasterer weren’t exactly hard to spot in the winners’ enclosure but Colm Murphy is far more low key.
Big Zeb’s trainer initially let all his emotions hang out after his nine-year triumphed in the day’s feature race.
He wasn’t long in collecting himself. Look closely and you will see that Murphy is something of a Brian Cody double and he is just as undemonstrative as the Kilkenny manager when faced with a microphone.
“It’s hard to be confident but we knew he was as well as we had ever had him,” said the Wexford trainer. “Everything went right in the build-up and, having got so close to Master Minded at Punchestown last year, we knew he was beatable.”
He hadn’t attempted to hide the fact either.
On Tuesday morning both he and Tom Cooper, Forpadydeplasterer’s trainer, attended a press conference a stone’s throw from the same winners’ enclose and cast their doubts on the well-being of Paul Nicholls’ favourite.
The problem for Murphy was that similar question marks had been raised in discussions on Big Zeb’s chances. Though his ability was never in doubt, his jumping and all-round performances had been.
Too often, the nine-year old had been brought over to the UK to live up to the hype at home but he finally justified all the talk with an accomplished display that destroyed Master Minded’s hopes of a hat-trick.
“He was a very immature horse in his younger days and was a real head-banger when he used to go to the races,” Murphy recalled, “but he has matured a lot and has grown into a man.
“It has been plain to see that he has had his bad days. He has done stupid mistakes but everything went well this year. We got greedy fingers and went to Sandown with him when we probably shouldn’t have but it turned out fine. Every day we are learning something new about him. It was the manner that he did it that was so great today, the way he just tracked down the hill. Everything went right for him and he jumped very well.”
Having Barry Geraghty on board was one crucial piece of the jigsaw. Big Zeb ran Master Minded to a head at Punchestown last season and Geraghty told the trainer afterwards he felt the result could be reversed next time.
“It was a great performance,” said Geraghty. “He jumped well all year. He ran no race at Sandown but, other than that, he has been very good. He didn’t jump well that day but he didn’t travel then. I always knew I had enough horse under me and that it was going to take a very good one to get by.”
As soon as he finished talking, he set off on Spirit River who gave him his second win of the day in the Coral Cup but all that accounted for just two of the half dozen wins claimed by Irish jockeys yesterday. Ruby and Katie Walsh bookended that sequence, which was only broken by Jason Tizzard in the last. Jason Maguire, on Peddlers Cross, and Davy Russell, on Weapon’s Amnesty, completed the sextet.
