Colm Greaves: Long road to the fantasy Gold Cup
LEADING THE WAY: Weatherbys Champion Bumper, John Gleeson on A Dream To Share celebrates winning. Pic Credit ©INPHO/Tom Maher.
Two days later the dust has yet to settle on the emotional rollercoaster that was Tuesday and what Ruby Walsh described as âsimply the best 40 minutes I have ever seen in horse racing.âÂ
While Honeysuckle heads off to motherhood the plans for Constitution Hill are still unclear. He has three options. Stay hurdling, go novice chasing or bypass a novice campaign altogether and go straight for the Champion Chase as a prelude to an assault on the Gold Cup the following year. If by some magic Nicky Henderson chooses the latter, and he probably wonât, Thursday's two Grade One chases could be harbouring a couple of future Gold Cup foes.
Mighty Potter has been at the head of ante-post markets for the Turners Novice Chase (1.30) for most of the winter. He has won his three starts over fences, two of them Grade Ones, with increasing conviction and should have no problem staying further than todayâs intermediate trip.
Shishkinâs pathway is less clear. He looked bomb-proof when he won the Supreme three years ago and then followed up with victory in the Arkle Chase a year later. But he hit the skids in last yearâs Champion Chase having contracted a rare bone condition. He looked to be back to his best last time when he breezed up at Ascot over two miles and five furlongs and is a short-priced favourite for the Ryanair Chase (2.50).
Imagine if all that fell into place. Gold Cup 2025. They are going down to the start, among them Galopin Des Champs going for three on the trot. The new favourite, Constitution Hill, Shishkin and the talented improvers, Mighty Potter, Gerri Columbe, Impaire et Passe and The Real Whacker. That would be a nice watch to look forward to.
In the emotional furnace of the winnerâs enclosure after the Mareâs Hurdle on Tuesday many names were mentioned and many friends were thanked. But one particular name hung over all the smiles and tears with wistful poignancy. Jack De Bromhead will be remembered again today, a little more formally this time, as the Mareâs Novice Hurdle is named in his honour.
And itâs a race worthy to carry the honour of the popular and much missed young man with the field a proper mix and match of horses. Some, like the warm favourite, Luccia have used straight roads to get here, others such as Princess Zoe, have travelled a more circuitous route.
Only one of her 27 races has been over sticks and that was when she dead-heated with Ladybank, who reopposes Thursday, in a mareâs maiden hurdle at Punchestown in January. But her trainer Tony Mullins dreams large dreams and he prepared her brilliantly to win the Prix Du Cadran at Longchamp on the flat. Inexperienced group one winning mares are not everyday fare at Cheltenham but Mullinâs effuses his usual optimism. âI canât believe her price.â he said last week. âIâve been telling Paddy Kehoe her owner that if he doesnât keep backing her now, Iâm going to call him a coward if she doesnât keep shortening.âÂ
She would be a popular winner but a win for another Zoe would be equally welcome. Magical Zoe is one of Henry DeBromheadâs five runners in a race that he would love to win for obvious reasons. Piloted by Aidan Heskin she is unbeaten in her three races to date although hasnât been seen on a racecourse since last November. Hopefully one of the famous five can bring the silverware home and help even a little to fill that Jack shaped hole in Co Waterford.
Hilary Clinton infamously labelled Trump supporters as âa basket of deplorablesâ during her Presidential campaign in 2016 and that remark was said to be one of the main reasons she lost the election. The Stayers Hurdle Thursday is another basket â this time one of unpredictable eccentrics and split personalities. Itâll be fun to see which version of them turns up.
The favourite, Blazing Khal, has caused much anxiety among his legions of ante-post supporters. A succession of niggles and minor set backs put his participation in doubt since the two wins at Cheltenham before Christmas over extended distances. He suffered some more nicks when winning the Boyne Hurdle at Navan in February but happily a nice bit of work on the Curragh last week has convinced trainer Charles Byrnes to take the risk and run him.
Opposing today are Flooring Porter, a woefully under-respected dual winner of the Stayers and priced insultingly for the hat-trick at 6/1. Teahupoo, joint favourite with Blazing Khal at 3/1, seems to need ground that is a lot softer than heâll get today and the often brilliant, often disappointing Klassical Dream may be running out of chances at the age of nine.
Gold Tweet came from nowhere, (or France to be more precise) to win Cleeve Hurdle over this course and trip in January and join the fray and Paisley Park runs his races like he is in an interval training session - slow, fast, slow, sprint â and tends to arrive too late for the party these days.
Joseph OâBrien has found a late-life seam of improvement in Home by the Lee and his switch back to staying hurdles from a Handicap Chasing career was an inspired decision which has resulted in a Grade One win at Leopardstownâs Christmas meeting. He is a likely winner, but predictable? Far from it!
