Want a good-news story? Try racing

THE economy is in tatters, the dole offices are packed, many at work are on reduced wages, but racing, thank you very much, is swinging along just nicely.

There has been a fair old upsurge in activity over the past few weeks, essentially since the real start of the National Hunt campaign.

And, I suppose, it shouldn't come as any great surprise. Certainly the racing which has been on offer so far has been of a very high calibre.

As well as that there is no doubt the number of horses in the National Hunt system has been reduced and balloting is no longer a major problem.

Less horses isn’t good for trainers, of course, but helps punters. Fields have become more manageable and punters feel they have a decent chance and are coming out to play.

And such a scenario is far better for bookmakers as well. They know the greater the turnover, the more likely it is that they will show a profit at the end of any given day.

Punchestown last Sunday was a nice success story, with an attendance in excess of 6,000 and thousands more watching in the betting offices and on At The Races.

The crowd was more than double that of the previous year and augurs well for what holds promise of a tremendous couple of months to come.

There are so many potentially high-class horses in Ireland right now that literally anything is possible.

And there is no doubt they have captured the public's imagination, big-time. Willie Mullins has a powerful yard, Noel Meade is flying and Gigginstown is bombing.

Proof of the pudding of the absence of doom and gloom in the game at the moment is the story related to me by a bookmaker this week. He stood at Punchestown on Sunday and was astonished to hold €18,000 in the final race on the card, the bumper. He said it was a throwback to the “good days” and, as far as he was concerned, offered much hope for the future.

Thousand Stars ran away with the Grade 1 Morgiana Hurdle, leaving those who price races for off-course bookmakers red-faced once more.

Imagine making Pittoni their 5-4 ante-post favourite! No independent thinking, just a case of one in all in.

Thousand Stars, easily the highest rated in the contest, of course, was on offer as high as 3-1. Amazing and long may it continue.

One needs to be careful as well when it comes to the mutterings of representatives of off-course layers.

The lead-in to the Paddy Power Chase at Cheltenham, for instance, is a good example. We had one of them waffling on about Paul Nicholls’ Mon Parrain, giving his opinion that the horse was likely to start a short-priced favourite.

Ruby Walsh was aboard and, in his column in this paper, appeared to be less enthusiastic than might have been anticipated.

In the end Mon Parrain was decidedly uneasy in the market, returned at 9-2, and trailed in a rather remote seventh behind Great Endeavour.

Anyway what about Last Instalment, who won the Grade 2 novice chase on Sunday? He’s an impeccable jumper and his record over fences is now two from two.

He hasn’t beaten anything decent, however, and it remains to be seen just how good he actually is.

What we can say, though, is Last Instalment jumped the final fence, at the end of two miles and six in testing conditions, with feet to spare and that was most encouraging.

************

AT the Punchestown festival in May, in the Grade 1 Guinness Gold Cup, Kauto Star was backed from 11-10 to corresponding odds-on, never went a yard and pulled up.

In the immediate aftermath of that race, it seemed inevitable connections would do the right thing by the horse and retire him.

But Paul Nicholls knew better, you don’t surge up through the ranks and become multiple champion trainer by accident, and decided that was not the note on which his stable star was leaving.

And so Kauto Star duly arrived at Haydock last Saturday for the Betfair Chase. In the light of Punchestown, what he proceeded to do was nothing short of a miracle.

Perhaps, a handful close to the horse thought him capable of winning, but the vast, vast majority gave him no chance.

No wonder Nicholls was animated in a manner never previously seen after Kauto, under the most magical Walsh drive, had scorched clear of Long Run from the back of the final fence.

It was pure theatre, fantastic television and moved people in a way that only an enduring, top-class National Hunt horse could.

Long Run lost little in defeat. He topped up the bank balance in the Gold Cup in March and there is every reason to believe will do so again.