Ruby Walsh: Another green week awaits, just a slightly paler shade this time
Tiger Roll can once again play his part in another successful Cheltenham Festival for the Irish. Picture: Alan Crowhurst/PA Wire.
There is very little doubt that the vibrant regency town of Cheltenham will be a better place this week with the influx of racegoers from far and wide.
I never thought much about what it must be like to live in this town during Festival week — until last year, when I realised just how much the people there need it. Nor did I realise that almost 11,7000 people live in the town or borough, but this week is a second Christmas or harvest in this town of two halves.
Some can afford to enjoy the racing while others need the spring bonus which Festival week brings. Airbnb may be newish, but not so in this area because houses and flats have been sublet for years.
Overflowing restaurants, pubs, nightclubs and chip shops spread the cash around. The demand for taxis in the post-drink-driving era has meant this Gloucester town is like Dublin City on All-Ireland day, but for five days.
It deserves what it gets for the discomfort locals endure for this party week because movement through the town is like walking uphill into a gale-force wind on one leg. At least the schools are out for Galway race week, and most of our significant sporting events are at the weekend, but here it is mid-week mayhem.
Riding here was easy compared to what it is now. Socialising is a killer when you can't figure out when to go home, and I never realised the enclosure at Cheltenham could be rebranded for summer tourism as hill walking on Cotswold tarmac. Up, down and around, and before even I get there, my shins are starting to ache. But like the thousands who travelled in 2020 and are getting ready to go again, I can't wait.
Of course, the last time the pilgrimage took place, we returned to the homeland as the pariahs who were infecting the nation with “the Covid”. The first confirmed Covid positive case in Ireland was on February 26, 2020, and nobody else left or returned to Ireland on the ferries or daily flights after that.
No, they were empty. The 2.7 million people who used Dublin Airport in February and March of 2020 did so before the 26th. After that, people only went to Cheltenham! Give me patience. Covid had long since bolted through Dublin Airport before we arrived back when Leo ordered shutdown.
Somebody had to carry the can. Fear and anger mean finger-pointing. I don't doubt many people did come home with it, but so did the thousands who had commuted abroad to work, had been on the slopes in Southern Europe, or had sought winter sun. But nobody wanted to be responsible for what was happening. And there was no way people who simply travelled for work, generating revenue for the government, were going to be blamed. Find revellers, those having fun and point the finger at them.
The reality is that nobody was to blame. Covid 19 had bolted through Dublin Airport long before the doors were closed and was doing the rounds before we even knew its name.
As for the great collective that doesn't exist in this sport of individuals, national teams. Be clear about this: They are all patriotic, but it is Willie v Gordon, Henry v Nicky, Paul v Dan, and all of them against each other.
The only teams are the ones behind the trainers or companies running bars, restaurants, betting pitches and TV broadcasts.
Here the Irish want to beat the Irish every bit as much as the English. Rachael wants to outscore Davy, Jack, and Paul, just as the people they ride for want one over their competition. Winning, on the whole, will be done so professionally and losing accepted gracefully.
Bragging is for the betting ring or the high stool because losing is the only certainty for those with skin in the game. Winning connections never jeer losing punters for not backing their horse, but that shoe is most certainly on the other foot.
Last year is history because you soon realise in the bowels of this racecourse that by Wednesday morning, Tuesday is history. It is a sport of the future, and the future looks green for the week ahead, but it might well be a paler shade than last year’s emerald.
The numbers are in the green corner, and safety does come in numbers, but they don't guarantee success and green success only shows the strength of the sport in Ireland.
Last year's Festival started on a familiar path, with Willie Mullins winning the first, Nicky Henderson the second and when Sue Smith’s Vintage Clouds took the third all looked normal.
Only that's where normality ended, and the Irish took over. Of the next 25 races, 22 were trained in Ireland and, more significantly, of the Festival’s 14 grade one races, only two of the winners were trained in England — both by Nicky Henderson.
When you add in the Foxhunters, Cross Country, National Hunt Chase and other two mares’ races, you have 19 races with set weight conditions. The handicapper can't level that playing field here because it's about talent and is more predictable.
The other nine races are handicaps where, in theory, all the horses are meant to finish in a bunch. After last year's score of 7-2 to Irish-based horses in this division, the reality is they will have more weight and the British less in an attempt to level the playing field.
Until a few have been run, it will be hard to gauge which way those races will split, but for argument's sake, make it 5-4 to the Irish-based horses for a prediction of what's ahead. Give the UK the Ultima, Grand Annual, Kim Muir, and Martin Pipe, but give the Irish the Boodles, Coral Cup, Paddy Power Plate, Pertemps, and County.
The cards are evenly dealt for the opener, England holds the aces in the second, in which we have the coloured cards, before the Irish can monopolise the fourth, fifth, and seventh with authority in Honeysuckle and numbers in the Mares’ Hurdle and National Hunt Chase. Tuesday could be 4-3 in our favour.
We look to have the better chances in the first on Wednesday but could lose the second to Britain. Ahoy Senor is trained in Scotland, and unless he or one Welsh Horse wins a handicap, it will determine if this artificial scoreboard is team GB or England. We will likely lose the fourth to Shishkin but won't be beaten in the Bumper, and I am giving Tiger Roll the Cross Country, so 4-3 again.
I am giving us the Turners and Ryanair, but the Stayers' could be tricky, so in the unlikely event of a dead heat, I will give that one away and take the Mares’ Novice Hurdle for a 5-2 victory on the day.
So, 13-8 teeing off for the final round could be 14-8 after the first, 14-9 after the Albert Bartlett, and 16-9 after the Gold Cup. The Foxhunters could make it 17-9 before the Mrs Paddy Power Chase sees it become 18-9. And then we can give the last away as a token of goodwill for a final score of 18-10.
Another green week, just a slightly paler shade this time.
