Three things we will learn today
Up until fairly recently Willie Mullins was uncertain as to which race Vroum Vroum Mag would contest this week.
The mare had some diverse options. On Tuesday there was a choice between the Champion Hurdle at a distance of two miles or the Mare’s Hurdle over half a mile further.
On Thursday the options were the World Hurdle over three miles, or the Ryanair, a chase over two and a half.
The Gold Cup may even have been under consideration at one point of the season. But as we know now, the Mares Hurdle was revealed at the weekend as the chosen destination.
A lot of people like to second guess Willie Mullins, tell him how to do his job, vent their frustration at his delayed decision making process.
But Mullins has forgotten more about preparing a horse than most of his rivals will learn in a lifetime and if he thinks his mare was equally ready for a fast hurdle as she was for a long chase then who are we to doubt him.
Some caution is needed in case this tactic catches on though.
If the O’Donovan brothers go to the Tokyo Olympics ready to pull like dogs they mustn’t be allowed to enter the badminton under any circumstances instead. There is only one Willie Mullins, and one is enough.
At least three of the top five in the betting for the Champion Hurdle are slightly accidental tourists who were unsure of their festival destinations at the beginning of the year.
Yanworth was discussed as a possibility for the World Hurdle, Buveur Dair was a going for the JLT Chase and Moon Racer was nearly favourite for the Supreme Novice Hurdle.
Then, at the end of January, Faugheen tweaked a muscle and was taken out of the Irish Champion Hurdle and a week later it was announced he wouldn’t make it to Cheltenham either which was about the same time reigning Champion Annie Power went wrong and her defence was scratched too.
Suddenly there a level of rerouting that would have done justice to an Orange Order parade and the race has assumed a completely different character than it might have had a month ago.
Alan King, Nicky Henderson and David Pipe are understandably talking up their horse chances with confidence and surety. But they sound a bit like the fearful kids in the playground who grow brave and tough in the playground once the bullies don’t show up for school.
When the novice chaser Coneygree won the Gold Cup two years ago it opened possibilities for a general rethink in how chasers are campaigned.
The long-accepted wisdom was that novices should be tenderly handled and graduated to Championship races only in their second season with the death of Gloria Victus in 2000 and the fall of Beef or Salmon signposting the pitfalls of too much, too soon.
But Thistlecrack was on the Coneygree route until his injury ruled him out last month which was about the time when people start hoping that the brilliant novice Altior would bypass today’s Arkle Novice Chase and take on Douvan in tomorrow’s Champion.
Alas, it wasn’t to be and while Nicky Henderson is probably wise to err on the side of caution what would undoubtedly have been the race of festival (century?) is not going to happen.
Barring an Act of God neither will be beaten. And if Altior destroys his opponents today in the manner expected of him the ‘what if’ questions will begin.
The problem is that they probably won’t answered for twelve months which given the carnage through injury this year is an anxiously long time to wait.
