Jimmy Mangan hopeful ‘class’ Spillane’s Tower can turn dreams to gold
TOWER-ING SUCCESS: Smiles all round after Spillane's Tower put himself firmly in the Cheltenham Cup Cup conversation by winning the Cotswold Chase last month. In doing so, he gave trainer Jimmy Mangan a first UK victory since the famous Grand National triumph of Monty's Pass in 2003. Picture: Healy Racing
A man walks into a hair salon and sits down for a trim. As she cuts his hair, the hairdresser asks him his weekend plans.
“I’m heading over to Liverpool,” he responds.
“Lovely,” replies the hairdresser. “Any particular reason?”
“I’m going over for the Grand National.”
“Oh, you’re into the horses are you?”
“I am, I actually train a horse running in it.”
“Lovely, has he a chance?”
“If he gets luck in running he’ll win.”
When the hairdresser returns home she tells her racing-mad son about the exchange and the name of the horse and trainer.
The son dismissively rolls his eyes and explains to her that all trainers think their geese are swans. She backs the horse, he doesn’t.
She wins money, her son does not. The year is 2003, the horse is Monty’s Pass, the trainer is Jimmy Mangan, and the skeptical son who spurns a chance to back a National winner is this writer.
Fast forward to St Stephen’s Day 2024 and Conna, County Cork trainer Mangan is back in the UK.
After a brilliant run when second to Fact To File in the John Durkan at Punchestown, the JP McManus-owned Spillane’s Tower, a dual Grade One-winning novice chaser, is sent off the 11-4 favourite for the King George at Kempton. He finishes fifth.
He returns to the UK the following April but the quick ground denies him the chance to run. He instead ends his season by finishing a distant second to Galopin Des Champs in the Punchestown Gold Cup.
He begins this season back over hurdles, finishing ninth of 14 at Naas before a more encouraging effort when third at Punchestown on New Year’s Eve.
The Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham on Festival Trials Day is identified as the right race for Spillane’s Tower to go back over the bigger obstacles. It’s a small field but Grey Dawning is expected to confirm his status as one of the big UK hopes for the Gold Cup.
But Mangan is confident. He’s sure his horse will perform. He does, getting the better of L’Homme Presse with Grey Dawning back in third.
It’s Mangan’s first victory in the UK since the 2003 National. Just as importantly, perhaps more so, it shows that Spillane’s Tower has the talent to be a player in the Gold Cup.
“I never lost faith in the horse,” Mangan insists. “I knew I was going over to Cheltenham with a very good chance. It was a big Saturday race and to go over there and pull it off was brilliant, great excitement.
“He ran against El Fabiolo in the hurdle race at Punchestown and he finished very well and the horse of Bowes (Glen Kiln) came out and won a graded race since. I knew I was going over to Cheltenham with a very good chance.”
Time will tell if Spillane’s Tower gets the green light to go for gold but given the McManus-owned Fact To File will have to be supplemented and Inothewayurthinkin looks a shadow of the horse who stormed up the hill to win last March, it seems more likely than not that Mangan’s pride and joy will be in the final line-up.
“Is he a definite to run in the Gold Cup? I’ll leave that to Frank (Berry)and JP. But the National is very late this year so it would be a big worry again that the ground might be gone. He has to have juice in the ground, I wouldn’t run him otherwise. That’s one thing about JP and Frank, and I thoroughly agree with them, you give them a tendon once and you have nothing then.
“I would (like a crack at the Gold Cup), he acted so well at Cheltenham the last day. He came back from Cheltenham A1 and I think he has improved again. He’s back to what he was as a novice, he’s even better, I’d say.”
While Cheltenham is his focus right now, longer term Mangan believes Spillane’s Tower has the talent to be an Aintree horse.
“He could be a National horse, without a doubt. The English National would be the race I’d like to go to in time. I’m not saying it’s easy, there’s no such thing as an easy race, but it’s not the big fences that were there before. You never went down the inside of Becher’s before but they all go down the inside now.”
They didn’t in 2003 but, as mentioned earlier, Mangan was supremely confident that Monty’s Pass would deliver.
“We did fancy him,” Mangan admits now. “I went to Liverpool the year before for the Topham and he finished second but we’d been to Cheltenham for the Mildmay of Flete (now the TrustATrader Plate Handicap Chase) and he was tired going home from Cheltenham — I was tired myself — and he still ran second in the Topham. And I remember saying to the syndicate: ‘Lads we’re coming back next year and I’ll win the big one for ye but we’re not going to Cheltenham.’ And we brought it off.
“I gave him a few runs over hurdles, his last run was in Punchestown and Paul Carberry rode him. Paul said to me: ‘Jimmy, I think he needs another race.’ I said: ‘His next race will be over in Liverpool, that’s his next race.’ I did fancy him big-time.
“I knew the fences would be no trouble to him, Monty was an incredible lepper, the distance would be no trouble so I really, really fancied him.”
As he would a first Cheltenham winner. Had things gone slightly differently that particular box would have been ticked in 2013 but Jimmy and his daughter Jane were cruelly denied victory in the Foxhunter Chase when Oscar Delta, having safely jumped the last fence, veered to go left through a tape which stretched across a break in the running rail and unseated the-then 18-year-old.
“It was the fault of the groundsman, he just left a gap and the horse thought he had to go around again. We all make mistakes but I was gutted for Jane. When I rushed off the stand to find out if she was okay, she was in tears and I remember the words I said to her. ‘Listen, you’re fine, you’re walking, think of the McNamara family’. Poor John Thomas got the fall the day before. I said: ‘We’ll be back.’ So it was nice to come back to Cheltenham and have the winner in the Cotswold Chase. Hopefully I’ll be back again.”
Jane has since gone on to enjoy a successful broadcasting career, much to the delight of her father.
“I remember when she was going getting a jockey’s licence I didn’t want her to get it for fear that she’d get hurt. And they went away behind my back and she got a jockey’s licence and she was pretty good in the saddle, she rode a good few winners for me and when she said she was giving up, I said: Don’t give up. So I didn’t want her to start and then I didn’t want her to give up but she knew what she was doing.”
As does her father, and his response when asked to compare Monty’s Pass to Spillane’s Tower is revealing.
“Monty was a handicapper but this horse has class,” he says.
“I never dreamt I’d have an entry for the Gold Cup, now I have a good possibility of having a runner with a good chance.
“In the village I come from the signs are still up ‘Home of Monty’s Pass’, so hopefully they can put another one up!”
In an open Gold Cup, you wouldn’t rule it out.
