2 Tuesday March 15 2022
the timesCHELTENHAM
2022Romance still lives against
BROUGH SCOTTequipment are infinitely superior, as is
nutrition and the overall understanding
of fitness, where many horses were
treated more as big, heavy hunters in
their build-up, rather than as the lean
and lithe athletes they need to be to
tackle the rigours of the track.
But the best comparison is the school
one. While there is a lot to be said for a
small establishment, not many parents
would consider a 200 or 300-pupil
college so massive that the head teacher
would not know their students by name
or be steering their development. That
parent would also recognise that it is the
other teachers down the line that are
equally if not more important.
In racing that is recognisably so, right
through from assistant trainer to jockey,
rider, groom, farrier and feeder. Anyone
who spends time with Paul Nicholls and
Clifford Baker, with Willie Mullins and
his David Casey, Patrick Mullins, Ruby
Walsh triumvirate, or, as I did last week,
with Nicky Henderson, De Boinville
and his long-time assistant Charlie
Morlock, will appreciate the success of
collegiate government.
But in the end it is about decisions,
and “the guvnor” has to take the final
and most crucial ones. For a racehorse
has been genetically programmed to be a
galloping athlete and any fool can get it
fit. The trick is the whole series of
decisions that allow it to develop to peak
mental and physical fitness. However
good the horses, the bad trainer will
always mess them up. However
moderate, the talented handler will get
the best out of them.
Inevitably this means that the beststaff will graduate to the most successful
yards. It was ever thus, but the
improvement in communication and big
yard facilities is in danger of squeezing
the competition out.
How unique it is that today’s
Champion Hurdle can feature the
multiple winner Tommy’s Oscar, one
of only six horses which Ann Hamilton
trains in Northumberland and which
have already taken 12 races, at a strike
rate not even a Mullins or Henderson
would dream of.
Part of what draws crowds to the
Festival is the romance and tradition.
Cleeve Hill and the Malverns provide
the finest backdrop in sport and in an
ever-more mechanised age there is a
yearning to forget today’s global
horrors and look back to the days
when the fastest you could travel
through the air was on the back of a
galloping racehorse.
Up to 2005, three days were enough to
slake this. Now there is serious thought
to change four seven-race days to five
afternoons with six. Sure, it would only
add two more races, and the money men
could say it is a “no-brainer”, but a look
at this week’s fields and the spectacle of
a single-figure National Hunt Chase
should make everyone ponder.
For you can always become too
popular, and Cheltenham has been here
before. Back in the 1820s the races were
run up on Cleeve Hill, the Gold Cup was
a three-mile flat race and crowds up to
30,000 led to such “riotous behaviour”
that the Reverend Francis Close led a
campaign into a full-scale, rock-
throwing, meeting-closing protest in- How much better was that?
SCOTT: MY HORSES TO WATCHTODAY
Constitution Hill
(Supreme Novices, 2.30pm)
We all have to vainly dream of the
ultimate and this is another hope
against expectation. But he looks good
and they do believe. Fingers crossed.Appreciate It
(Champion Hurdle, 3.30pm)
Hasn’t run since winning the Supreme
Novices on this day last year. With any
other trainer this would look stupid. But
Willie Mullins doesn’t do stupid.TOMORROW
Stage Star
(Ballymore Novices, 1.30pm)
He is one of Paul Nicholls’s stable stars
but only fourth favourite behind the
Irish team. I think bookies are
accepting a false inferiority complex.Editeur Du Gite
(Grand Annual, 4.50pm)
Winner of his last two starts and last
time over this course in December. His
father/son, trainer/jockey combination
of Gary and Jamie Moore are in deadly
form and the price is a sporting one.THURSDAY
Shan Blue (Ryanair Chase, 2.50pm)
In the moments before he fell at
Haydock in October he looked like he
was the star he had promised to be.
This could be the revelation.Coole Cody
(Irish Whiskey Plate, 4.10pm)
It’s a very tough race and he looks to
be held by the handicapper. But some
horses show the attitude you like to
have on your side and Coole Cody is
one of them.FRIDAY
I Like To Move It
(County Hurdle, 2.10pm)
Ran an absolute cracker last time, the
trainer loves him, and so do I.A Plus Tard (Gold Cup, 3.30pm)
As I write the sun is out and the ground
is drying. Despite rain forecast
tomorrow, I believe both that the
ground will be good on Friday and that
A Plus Tard will be too fast for them.Rob Wright’s top tips
How to bet £20 at CheltenhamRiviere D’Etel (2.10)
£10 win
4-1 generally availableBurning Victory (4.10)
£5 win
9-1 with Coral and William HillToo Friendly (4.50)
£2.50 each-way
22-1 with Coral, Ladbrokes and William HillTotal stake - £20
I
s bigger better? Sixty years ago the
Champion Hurdle and the Gold
Cup were won by Britain’s leading
trainer Fulke Walwyn in what was a
three-day Cheltenham Festival. He
would have no more than 40 horses out
of a morning. Today Nicky Henderson
would have 140 and what is now four
days may be stretched to five.
Paul Nicholls and Dan Skelton would
have similar battalions; over in Ireland
Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott would
have more than 200 under saddle every
day, and each has raiding parties 50
strong this week. It’s some contrast to
Tom Dreaper, who from 1964 to 1966
matched Arkle’s three Gold Cups with
victories from Flyingbolt in the Supreme
Novices, the Arkle and the Champion
Chase, all the while having hardly 30
more horses in those red brick old boxes
at Kilsallaghan.
No one disputes that Walwyn and
Dreaper were as complete masters of
their professions as any of today’s heroes,
any more than the likes of Honeysuckle
and Shishkin can be considered superior
to the two astonishing geldings that
shared that same County Meath camp in
the 1960s. And if the past is another
country, there is thought as well as
laughter behind the Walwyn jockey Bill
Smith’s memory of the great man sitting
down at the end of the morning and
saying, “I can’t train three lots. I need a
gin and tonic.”
Are today’s tyros really capable of
giving individual attention to four or five
times the old numbers, or were the great
names of history bogged down by their
own limitations? For it was a very
different world. We were still in the age
of steam, dial-up telephones, telegrams,
black-and-white televisions and
broadsheet newspapers. To get from
Chepstow to Cheltenham you had to go
via Gloucester, as there was no bridge
over the Severn.
The comparative speeds of the
communication of information are quite
astonishing. Back in the day most things
came by post, messages by hand. At 7am
on Wednesday Nicky Henderson was
scrolling down his Cheltenham runners
on his iPad, and out on the downs half
an hour later he was on his mobile to
Nico de Boinville, discussing how the
stable jockey should play Shishkin in his
final workout.
Once decanted on to the top of the
famous Wantage Road gallop,
Henderson’s wife, Sophie, would turn
camera operator with her own mobile,
and a record of the Champion Chase
favourite’s wellbeing would be winging
its way to Shishkin’s lucky owners. It
is a far cry from when the best hope of
communication was a Sunday morning
phone call from the trainer, or even one
of those beautifully written letters sent
out by the legend that was Vincent
O’Brien, whose record of three
consecutive victories in both the
Champion Hurdle and the Gold Cup,
followed by the same feat in the Grand
National, will never be matched, even if
a trainer had a thousand horses.
But this is no rose-tinted look back to
the past. Life was much rougher back
then, and lesser trainers got away with
terrible things. Clothing, tack andHoneysuckle — Champion Hurdle — today
This brilliant mare is unbeaten in 14 starts and easily landed the
Irish Champion Hurdle for a third time at Leopardstown last
month. The acceleration that she showed on the home turn there
was impressive and it will take a good horse to stop her from
repeating last year’s win in this raceShishkin — Champion
Chase — tomorrow
This is the highlight of
the week, with
Shishkin again being
tackled by the
talented Irish chaser
Energumene.
Shishkin came out on
top when the pair
clashed at Ascot in
January but had to
pull out all the
stops to win by a
length. He remains
the one to beat in
what should
be a thriller.BANKER
BANKER
THE WEATHER FORECASTTuesdayHow to
follow
TV: First five races on ITV,
12.50pm to 4.30pm.
Radio: First four races
on talkSPORTWednesdayThursdayFriday“
The best hope of
communication used to
be a Sunday morning
phone call from the trainer