Mug's Game: Thank you, Audrey. Thank you, Paul and Willie. Thank you, Infant of Prague.
DREAM TEAM: Galopin Des Champs and Paul Townend won the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup Chase (Grade 1) for Willie Mullins. Pic: Healy Racing
Had the short head gone the other way I’d be well ahead for the festival. And yes, ifs and ands and pots and pans and all of that, and doubtless I wouldn’t be home washing my hair tonight were Scarlett Johansson on my speed dial, except she isn’t. Et cetera et cetera.
As things stand, however, what could have been a terrific festival will be a merely passable one. And that will be irritating in the extreme.
How about a short-priced double, then? Why not. Lossiemouth in the Triumph, Galopin Des Champs in the big race, both of them around 6/4. A tenner will pay 6/1.
A 50-cent each-way Lucky 15 – yes, real high-roller stuff - featuring Three Card Brag, Imagine, Rocky’s Howya (nominated by my Dungarvan correspondent, who for obvious reasons has had a good week) in the hunter chase and Hunters Yarn, not in the hunter chase. A €3 each-way double featuring Three Card Brag and Imagine because why not. Twenty euro in reserve for the later races just in case.
After last month’s defeat at Leopardstown, where the pair ran into a series of traffic problems usually only witnessed on the M50 on a Friday evening, Paul Townend owes it to both himself and Lossiemouth to stay out of trouble. He does, she can be called the winner from a long way out and she stays on stoutly by a couple of lengths. The first four are all inmates of the WP Mullins yard and none of them is Blood Destiny, the second favourite.
The €10 double is alive. We’re halfway there. You can do the Bon Jovi bit yourself.
There’s no joy with Hunters Yarn or Three Card Brag, though the latter finishes fifth. (I mention this detail because you know the way Match of the Day sometimes shows an early yellow card..? Well, that.) I’ll survive. I may not survive if the second part of the double capsizes. But lo, a good omen is at hand.
The sun is blazing down and we discover the reason why. ITV interview Audrey Turley, the owner of Galopin Des Champs, who produces her statue of the Infant of Prague, that noted worker of meteorological miracles.
“It’s guaranteed to bring sunshine for weddings and so on,” explains Audrey, resplendent in a magnificent coat of suitably verdant hue, to the heathen English. Quite. And if Mrs Turley has the Holy Child on her side for the weather, she has that other holy duo, Townend and Mullins, on her side for the on-course stuff. Blessed art thou among women, Audrey!
Townend is duly magnificent on Galopin Des Champs, riding him not to get every yard of the trip – he’s not that kind of horse - but to be there when it counts. Galopin wins with something in hand. The new champion.
AP McCoy and Ruby Walsh, those strictest of taskmasters, are ecstatic at Townend’s performance (“magic,” Ruby swoons). Audrey is ecstatic. I’m ecstatic. The Infant of Prague is doing a jig off-camera.
Audrey is £351,688 better off. I’m €72.19 better off, stake included. I’m not sure if she’s the more elated one.
I’d be happy to leave it there. Rephrase that: I’d be satisfied to leave it there. I have a cake and there’s an adequate amount of icing on the top, but had Gerri Colombe won there’d be strawberries and sprinkles too.
Happily the afternoon hasn’t quite ended. Rocky’s Howya, baulked in the last 100 yards by a loose horse who decides to stop to a walk, manages fourth in the hunter chase. Imagine finishes fifth in the 5.30.
The each-way double has come up, yielding €14.49. Three of the place legs of the Lucky 15 have come up, yielding €20.99. I have triumphed in Fergie Time.
I reach for a pencil and the back of a cigarette packet, furrow my brow and after much adding, subtracting and crossing out conclude that I’m €76.48 up for the day and €141.88 ahead for the week.
That’ll do. Thank you, Audrey. Thank you, Paul and Willie. Thank you, Infant of Prague.
I am no longer irritated in the extreme. For which the rest of the McEvoys will be grateful in the extreme.
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