Colm Greaves: looking for the rub of the green at Cheltenham
Punters watch the early stages of the Jack De Bromhead Mares' Novices' Hurdle during day three of the Cheltenham Racing Festival at Prestbury Park on Thursday. Picture: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
The Triumph Hurdle (1.30) was traditionally a big field cavalry charge but the addition of the Fred Winter Handicap for juveniles in 2005 completely altered the look and feel of the race and it is now a much more predictable, high-grade contest.
Bookmakers believe that today race is very predictable too, and estimate that Willie Mullins has about a 90% chance of victory. This is unsurprising as he saddles seven of the fifteen strong field including the first four in the betting.
The long-time ante-post favourite, Lossiemouth like last year’s winner Vauban is owned by the American banker, Rich Ricci. Despite his large string of expensively bough horses, Ricci hasn’t had a winner yet this week and will be hoping that his luck can change with Lossiemouth.
The French import impressed in her first two races in Ireland winning on her debut at Fairyhouse and then progressing nicely to take a Grade Two at the Leopardstown Christmas meeting.
Her smooth pathway to Cheltenham was disrupted next time out at the Dublin Racing Festival when she was badly hampered when a stablemate, Jourdefete, blundered at the fifth and Lossiemouth couldn’t recover the lost ground despite strong urging by Paul Townend. Mullins, uncharacteristically, sounded publicly exasperated after the race and worried that the unnecessarily hard pursuit in a cause long lost would lessen her chances in the Triumph.
In contrast, the second favourite, Blood Destiny has had a much less dramatic preparation. A winner of his two starts to date by an aggregate of twenty-three lengths he comes here as fresh as a daisy having been rested since he cruised home at Fairyhouse in January.
Townend sticks with Lossiemouth today and will be focussed on making amends for the Leopardstown wrinkle and Patrick Mullins takes the ride on Blood Destiny. An intriguing contest could well be Patrick’s day.
Willie has restricted himself to just the two runners in the Gold Cup but one of them Galopin Des Champs a seven-year-old with limitless potential.
He would still be unbeaten in five chases had he not crumbled after the final fence when clear in the Turners Chase last year and fingers crossed tightly that he could replicate over fences what Constitution Hill did over hurdles on Tuesday. He is unlikely to have it as handy in this is a much more competitive contest and a compelling cast of characters.
This time last year Hewick was being pulled up after a four-mile slog in a Uttoxeter Handicap and Noble Yeats could finish no closer than ninth in the Ultima Chase on the first day of The Festival. Fast forward twelve months and between them they have won an Aintree and American National, the Galway Plate and the Bet365 Gold Cup and their combined ratings have improved by fifty pounds.
A Plus Tard was a brilliant Gold Cup winner last year and stable noises suggest he has fully recovered from a bafflingly bad display in his only race this season at Haydock in November. His stablemate and 2021 winner Minella Indo also returns from absence at a track he loves while Stattler and Conflated are other Irish raiders with solid claims. The home team are also strongly represented, their best chance seemingly being Bravemansgame, who was an impressive winner of the King George at Christmas But few things in racing stirs excitement like a promising young chaser on the verge of immortality. It is far to soon to burden Galopin Des Champs with such expectations but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. That step could be when the starter drops his flag at 3.30 this afternoon.
To put it simply, the concluding race of The Festival, The Martin Pipe Conditional Jockey’s Handicap Hurdle, is always great craic. A couple of dozen runners, many of them well exposed, some of them lurking menacingly in the handicap high grass and all of them ridden by conditional jockeys with variable levels of skill and expertise.
The best fun of all is trying to work out which of the long-hatched plots will come to fruition today and despite all the cloak and daggers race it can be a very strong indicator of future Grade One animals. Horses of the quality of Sir Des Champs, Don Poli, Killultagh Vic, Indefatigable, Banbridge and of course today’s Gold Cup favourite, Galopin Des Champs have all won the Martin Pipe.JP McManus runs two, including Iroko who could be very dangerous off just 138.
The favourite, Spanish Harlem, is trained by Willie Mullins and ridden by Michael O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan must be pinching himself lately to ensure that the steep upward curve in his career is not a dream.
Spanish Harlem has a profile very similar to Galopin Des Champs when he won this two years ago. A five-year-old French import, running in handicap company for the first time following three defeats in Ireland. Galopin was rated 142 when he won two years ago, Spanish Harlem gets in off 131 and there will be plenty of money for him to complete our annual Irish rout of the English. Normally there is a 362 day wait before we do it again but thankfully there is Lansdowne Road tomorrow to help break the fall.
