CHELTENHAM
20229confident,” he says. “John Francome
came to ride him on the gallops before
and I remember the smile on his face. It
was one of those days when everything
went right. We had three winners and
paraded the horses on the Saturday.
Phenomenal.” Then O’Brien went racing
in Wales. Memories last, but glamour
are interdependent, and there is much
more to it than just what happens on the
racecourse. The roots stretch beneath
the sports field and into the depths of
what drives the industry. National Hunt
racing as we understand it exists only in
this corner of the world, and for one to
thrive, it needs the other to be strong.
The competition is the driver.
That said, it might take a little while
for this wheel to turn. There was depth
to the Irish performance at last year’s
Cheltenham Festival. As well as winning
23 of the 28 races, they dominated the
marquee events. Irish-trained horses
filled the first three places in the Gold
Cup and the Ryanair Chase, three of the
first four places in the Champion Hurdle,
two of the first three places in the
Champion Chase and four of the first
five places in the Stayers’ Hurdle. They
also filled the first four places in the
Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle, the first five
places in the Mares’ Chase, and the first
two places in the Fred Winter Hurdle,
the Ballymore Hurdle, the Champion
Bumper, the Plate, the Pertemps Final
and the County Hurdle. Also, two of
the five British-trained winners last
year got home by a short head from
Irish-trained rivals.
Much was made of the performance of
the Irish-trained horses in the handicaps
last year, that they won seven of the nine
handicaps suggested they were leniently
handicapped, and measures have been
taken this year to try to address that.
But Irish horses performed highly
across the board last year, not just in the
handicaps. They excelled in the graded
races, so you would have expected a
similar level of performance in the
handicaps too. Twenty-three out of 28
overall is a strike rate of over 82 per
cent, seven out of nine is a strike rate
of just under 78 per cent, so not as
great a strike rate in the handicaps as
they had overall.
This week, an Irish-trained horse is
either favourite or joint-favourite in 23 of
the 28 races. So, while last year’s total of
23 Irish-trained winners was
unprecedented, it may be that this year’s
total will not fall too far short.a business’
fades fast. This yard will not stop for the
Festival. Like the farrier looking for the
root of a problem, it all starts from the
bottom up. Willie Mullins and Gordon
Elliott’s battalions will, no doubt, feature
in the winners’ circle, as referenced by a
merry tweet from the O’Brien-
McPherson Racing Twitter account.
Pre-race instructions to jockey Paddy
Brennan in the Bumper. “Just follow the
Mullins horse.” “Which f*****g one?”
O’Brien says he is not responsible for
this mischief, but if the string is small,
the dream woven from the daily graft of
his team can match all-comers.
6 Horseracing’s focus on equine welfare is
detailed in the Life Well Lived strategy at
http://www.greatbritishracing.comT
here were 23 Irish-trained
winners at last year’s
Cheltenham Festival, and that
was a record. Not many saw
that coming. Irish hopes were
high going into the week, but Irish hopes
are usually high, and only the most
optimistic of projections could have
forecast a total of that magnitude. The
highest total before last year was 19, in
2017, when Ruby Walsh rode four
winners on the Thursday, Sizing John
won the Gold Cup on the Friday and a
seven-year-old novice named Tiger Roll
won the National Hunt Chase.
Last year was not just a blip though. It
was the continuation of a trend that
started somewhere in the bowels of the
early 2000s and gathered momentum.
The late 1980s and early 1990s weren’t
that long ago, when there would be two
or three or four Irish-trained winners at
Cheltenham, and every one of them was
news. Galmoy was the lone flag bearer in
1987 when he won the Stayers’ Hurdle,
and John Mulhern’s horse was the only
Irish winner again in 1988 when he won
a second Stayers’ Hurdle. And when
Galmoy’s bid for a hat-trick of Stayers’
Hurdles was thwarted in 1989 by Rustle,
there were no Irish-trained winners at
the Cheltenham Festival.
The Champion Bumper was added to
the Cheltenham roster in 1992, and that
was always going to be a penalty kick for
the Irish. And, sure enough, six of the
first seven renewals of the race were won
by an Irish-trained horse. But even so,
and even with the increase in the
number of races at the Cheltenham
Festival to 20 in 1993, the number of
Irish winners did not reach double
figures until 2006. By then, there were
24 races, and British trainers still easily
held sway.
It was in 2013 that there were more
Irish-trained winners than British-
trained winners at the Cheltenham
Festival for the first time. It was 13-13
going into the final race, the Grand
Annual, and AP McCoy booted the Tom
Mullins-trained Alderwood home, up the
hill and into the winner’s enclosure, in
the JP McManus silks.
You couldn’t have imagined that that
situation could ever come about. Not 24
years earlier for sure, when there were
no Irish winners, not even six years
earlier when there were just five. But
that’s the thing about these elements:
they are in a constant state of flux.
Things change, they follow the cycle.
Thuas seal, thíos seal, we say in Irish. Up
for a little while, down for a little while.
At present, the balance of power rests
with the Irish-trained horses, no
question, but you know that it won’t
always be thus. And when you are in the
middle of a high or a low, you can’t
imagine that it would be any different,
how it could be any different. Like, when
Irish winners at Cheltenham were scarce
and British-trained horses came over to
Ireland and regularly plundered the top
National Hunt prizes — eight of the first
nine renewals of the Irish Gold Cup were
won by a British-trained horse — you
couldn’t have imagined a time at which
the balance of power would not rest with
the British horses.
Irish and British National Hunt racingIrish hegemony was
once unimaginable
but expect more of it
“
As well as
winning 23 of
the 28 races at
last year’s
Cheltenham
Festival, the Irish
dominated the
marquee events
DONN MCCLEANGordon Elliott, one of the leading Irish trainers, returns to the Festival
after missing last year’s event because he was banned for posing for a
photo while sitting on a dead horse. He resumed training in SeptemberIrish dominance
Festival winners by
where the horses are
trained
Great Britain
Ireland
2011201220132014201520162017201820192020202114221315141391114115135141213151917141623ELLIOTT BACK AFTER BAN FOR POSING ON DEAD HORSEDAN SHERIDAN/INPHO/SHUTTERSTOCK“
In Flat racing, people can
be miserable. But
everyone helps each
other in jumps