Martin Brassil: I never thought I'd have a Gold Cup horse

Fastorslow could bring his shrewd trainer to the pinnacle of National Hunt racing

Wed, 24 Jan, 2024 - 18:00

Tommy Lyons

Martin Brassil belongs to a band of tremendously talented Irish trainers who may never wish to compete in the numbers game which could yield a trainers’ championship but when the ammunition is right, they can deliver on the biggest stages.

Brassil, whose best season to date in Ireland yielded 13 winners, came to wider prominence all the way back in 2005 when Numbersixvalverde won the Irish National, and when the same horse won the Aintree equivalent a season later, he marked himself down as a truly shrewd operator.

Around the same time, Nickname also raised his head above the parapet, winning a Grade One and numerous Grade Twos for the trainer.

There have been some decent sorts in the interim, most notably City Island, who won the 2019 Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, but in Fastorslow he has a horse who could bring him to the pinnacle of National Hunt racing: The Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Victory in last season’s Punchestown Gold Cup, in which the Sean and Bernardine Mulryan-owned gelding lowered the colours of reigning Cheltenham Gold Cup champion Galopin Des Champs, provided the breakthrough at the top level, and he revealed that to be more than just end-of-season form by repeating the feat in the John Durkan Memorial on his only outing to date this season.

Despite having got the upper hand with that rival in two of their three meetings to date, Brassil still sees his charge as the challenger as they prepare for two potentially huge clashes in the coming months, more immediately in the Irish Gold Cup at the upcoming Dublin Racing Festival.

"Galopin Des Champs is a top-class horse, a Gold Cup winner, so he's always going to be hard enough to crack,” reasoned Brassil. “Going back over three miles is a plus for him — we haven't raced against him in those conditions.

"I'd say we could possibly be the main challenger. I'm not saying we'll beat him every time we meet him, but I'm sure they have plenty of respect for my horse as I have for theirs.”

Preparations continue apace and the Co Kildare trainer was more than pleased with the results as he put his horse through his paces on Wednesday morning at the Curragh.

"I'm very happy with him, he's in a good place,” he assured onlookers. “He's a very easy horse to watch as he eats well, loves his work, and thrives on what he does. It's a case of maintaining that.

"We were only hopeful he'd finish in the first three in the John Durkan, there was plenty of improvement to come from him, so hopefully there will be.”

While he regards his charge as versatile with regard to ground, Brassil felt running on testing ground at Leopardstown’s Christmas festival wouldn’t have been the right thing for his horse and thus he skipped the meeting. Should similar conditions prevail at the Dublin Racing Festival, he could be switched to the Dublin Chase, over two miles, as his final race on his journey back to the Cotswolds.

While the two races are very different tests, it is safe to assume, given past performance, that Brassil will have him spot-on for the Festival, where he finished runner-up in the Ultima Handicap Chase and the Coral Cup on his last two visits.

Brassil could be forgiven for cursing his luck at the venue, as the ground was soft on both occasions and Fastorslow was beaten a neck in 2023 and a short head in 2022, but his patient approach with the horse has yielded dividends and he is currently second favourite to win the Gold Cup. Third time lucky, perhaps?

"He’s been beaten a short head and a neck at Cheltenham and An Epic Song was just touched off in the Coral Cup, but I'm sure one will get their head on the right side of it soon," he said.

"We know he acts around there. The Ultima was only his fourth run over fences, his first handicap, and he just came up a bit short, but there was always going to be improvement and thankfully he showed that in Punchestown.

"Because he had won in France before we got him, some of the conditions of the races we'd have liked to have run him in meant we couldn't. There were no winners-of-one, not one chase on the programme, so we had to pitch him in the deep end — his second and third runs over fences were in Grade Ones.

"Doing that has helped him. He's not afraid of much, enjoys what he's doing, and is starting to think he's special.

"I never thought I'd have a Gold Cup horse, I always thought it was something everyone else had a horse for, but I probably felt the same before the National."