Rooting for the small, smaller and smallest of stables: what we will learn at Cheltenham on Wednesday

Dan King will ride Shuttle Diplomacy for Tom Cooper, and also Oscars Brother for his brother Connor King, two of the smallest operations to saddle horses at Cheltenham this week

Oscars Brother, recently purchased by JP McManus, is one of two horses trained by Connor King. Pic: Healy Racing Photo

Small stables, big breaks?

A regrettable consequence of the increasing dominance of powerhouse stables is that there are fewer crumbs left on the Cheltenham table for the smaller yards to nibble at. The history of the festival has been long enriched with legendary tales of unsung trainers like Sirrill Griffith winning the Gold Cup with his milk cart horse, Nortons Coin or Tom Foley creating folklore with Danoli. But just because it doesn’t happen all that often that doesn’t mean it won’t happen and there are live possibilities for several of the small, smaller, and smallest trainers slaying some lofty giants this afternoon.

Small: Declan Queally, who along with his son, Declan Jr., operate a relatively small string on a hill above Dungarvan in West Waterford and have been building serious momentum this season with 17 winners to date including their first Grade One with I’ll Sort That at Naas in January. Bought for only three and a half grand he is a generous looking 12/1 for the Turners (1.20) and to again overuse the cliché, if he was with a bigger stable, his price would be a lot shorter than that.

Smaller: Tom Cooper, father of the top-class jockey Bryan has tasted Cheltenham glory already when Total Enjoyment won the bumper in 2004 and Forpadydeplasterer the Arkle five years later. He sadly lost his main hope for this year when St. Clovis died on the gallops last month, having spent much of the winter near the top of the betting for the Bumper. Shuttle Diplomacy also goes in the Turners and his win at Naas last time out fully entitles him to his entry.

Smallest: Shuttle Diplomacy will be ridden by the up-and-coming Cork rider, Dan King, who also rides Oscars Brother in the Brown Advisory Novices Chase (2pm). Oscars Brother is one of only two horses trained by his big brother, Connor, near Golden in Tipperary. Happily, Dan has kept the ride on Oscars Brother who was bought from the small King family syndicate by the not-so-small JP McManus operation recently. The horse was originally bought for €8,000 by Connor’s father, Richard, whose other son Rory also rides out when he is not engineering roads. A win Wednesday would raise the roof for this likeable poker of Kings.

Heartwarming for the Hartys?

Another small Irish operation with big dreams this week is the combined father and son training team of Edward and Patrick Harty. The extended family has endured a spring of sadness, first with the loss of Edward’s mother, Patricia in early February and then his father a week later. Eddie Snr was a renowned equestrian rider, an Olympian in 1960 and a Grand National winner on Highland Wedding in 1969.

The Harty family are a respected and embedded institution in Irish racing, particularly on the Curragh where they train their horses and are taking the unusual step of running their nine-year-old novice chaser, Irish Panther, in the Champion Chase this afternoon, rather than yesterday’s Arkle Chase. He will be ridden by Kieran Buckley and start around 12/1 in the betting. This race is normally run at a fast and furious pace and is not usually a place for novices, but several factors persuaded the Hartys that this was the race for him. Firstly, it has cut up due to the injury to Marine Nationale and decision by Gordon Elliott to reroute Romeo Coolio, who beat Irish Panther half a length at Christmas to today’s easier Brown Advisory Chase (2.00).

Secondly at age nine he is older than an average novice chaser and might not get too many more chances. Finally, he is a very sound jumper, and, as his trainer said, if he can’t jump well enough for the Champion Chase, he won’t jump well enough for the Arkle. Speaking last week, Edward Harty also remarked that “If you want to bring it down to the lowest tier, he doesn't know he's not in a novice race so he's not going there with any mindset that 'I'm stepping up here', that is down to us."

There would be few more popular, or poignant, winning stories this week.

Flat to the board 

The multiple Irish flat champion jockey, Colin Keane, dips his toe into the National Hunt code this afternoon when he pilots The Mourne Rambler for Noel Meade in the bumper. Meade is also a man who knows his way around both codes and his five-year-old has been well supported into 9/1 to add this considerable feather to Keane’s already heavily laden cap.

Flat race jockeys in the Cheltenham winner’s enclosure are a rare sight these days, although Jamie Spencer won the bumper on Pizarro in 2002 and Johnny Murtagh hit the bar in 2006 when he came up a head short on Golden Cross when My Way De Solzen won that year’s Stayers Hurdle.

The Mourne Rambler has only run once, but that was in a Leopardstown Bumper on St Stephen’s Day, the same race won by Facile Vega on his way to festival bumper glory five years ago. The Mourne Rambler won it impressively, going away at the finish from a decent looking field and this has been his target since.

If Keane enjoys his day out and ponders a permanent switch to the jumps he’ll never get within an ass’ roar of the greatest dual-purpose rider, Martin Molony.

The Limerick native was champion National Hunt jockey in Ireland six times, won three Irish Nationals, a Cheltenham Gold Cup and three classics on the flat.