A rollercoaster week at Cheltenham: Here are the takeaways
GOLDEN MOMENTS: Jockey Rachael Blackmore celebrates winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup with A Plus Tard Pic: Dan Sheridan, Inpho
THE first race of the meeting, the Supreme Novice Hurdle produced its by now traditional false start. A few of the horses got over-excited and it took some time to regroup behind the tape and send them away properly. Just under three minutes and forty-five seconds later Constitution Hill crossed the line alone, destroying both a high-class field and Annie Power’s course record at the same time.
The most impressive winner of the week was the first one. A couple of dozen lengths behind the winner was Jonbon.
“Any horse that could beat him that easily,” said his trainer Nicky Henderson “must be ‘an extraordinary animal.”
A couple of hours later Honeysuckle easily captured her second Champion Hurdle, winning a lot easier than the three and half-length verdict suggested. It was an imperious display by the mare who has now been elevated to Dawn Run and Istabraq levels of public adulation.
Then on Wednesday, Sir Gerhard put his hand up to join the hurdling elite when winning the Ballymore Novice Hurdle and on Thursday, the first two winners Vauban and State Man won with an authority that suggests they too might someday eat at the top table.
Constitution Hill’s owner, Michael Buckley said after his win that he might send him to Punchestown for some senior hurling against Honeysuckle in April and a cold realisation dawned on just how marvellous a spectacle this would be. Thousands of fingers, and toes, were crossed that Henderson wouldn’t awake Buckley from his daydream. Either way, the Champion Hurdle division next year could be white-hot and the Honeysuckle ‘threepeat’ is nowhere near being a certainty.
DOLLY Parton once said, “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” But even the legendarily upbeat Dolly would have found the Wednesday deluge hard to bear. Luckily there were diversions. Honeysuckle held her ‘emotional highlight of the week’ title for only a day. She was supplanted by Tiger Roll, who in the final race of an amazingly versatile career nearly pulled off a miracle in unsuitable ground.
Cheers echoed through the racecourse and then settled into a loud and heartfelt goodbye to an old friend. All the ongoing guff about Aintree handicap ratings and the decision of Gigginstown to put Delta Work in the way of a final victory was quickly forgotten A day later the entourage of the by now famous Flooring Porter syndicate with their famously inexpensive horse travelled to Cheltenham in droves. All were wearing black and white scarves flocking like magpies, hoping that Thursday would be their ‘two for joy’ day.
Somehow a good lump of them managed somehow to gain entrance to the winner’s enclosure after their quirky little hero successfully defended his Stayers Hurdle title. Long and meaningful memories were made with their displays of sheer exuberance and delight.
The emotional rollercoaster was not just restricted to these two events.
Despair: Galopin Des Champs slips on landing.
Relief: Journey With Me reappears from behind the green shielding screens after his fall at the last.
Anger: The decision to water the course overnight on Tuesday, not realising that a downfall was coming that would have had Noah cutting wood. Awe: Almost too many examples to list: Constitution Hill, Honeysuckle, L’Homme Press, Allaho, Vauban.
Happiness: We get to do it all again next year.
YET another emotion, deep sadness, entered, uninvited to the Cheltenham festival yesterday when Ginto, favourite for the three-mile Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle broke down badly when in strong contention on the approach to the last. An expensive horse, he cost €470k when sold at public auction as a four-year old. He was bought by Bective Stud and trained at Cullantra by Gordon Elliot. Sadly, his mishap was fatal and he couldn’t be saved.
Owning select National Hunt horses is an expensive game and this was very publicly demonstrated on Thursday night when three lots in the post racing parade ring sales fetched above three hundred thousand pounds. One of those is called Better Days Ahead, a four-year-old Milan gelding and he too was knocked down to Bective Stud for just short of four-hundred thousand euros. Paying these prices for untried horses is clearly not for the faint-hearted and there is an old maxim that says the quickest way to become a millionaire is to have a billion and start buying hoses.
Less than an hour after The Nice Guy had brought up a Willie Mullins treble in the ill-fated Albert Bartlett, A Plus Tard powered up the hill under Rachael Blackmore to win the Gold Cup. This is the pinnacle of jump racing and there can only be one winner each year.
Anybody who ever breeds a foal with a jumping pedigree dream of that Friday afternoon at the Cheltenham and powering up the hill in the Gold Cup to collect the huge first prize. Yesterday that amounted to just short of four-hundred thousand euros.
The Moran family, who own Bective Stud will be wondering this weekend what they need to do to catch a break. Nothing really, other than to keep calm, carry on and hope for better days ahead.
