ballyburn stuffed, the last match-up of the holiday, will regent stroll home, solness & elliott's bid for championship glory.

​Ruby Walsh was right, was he not? ‘Ballyburn doesn’t look like a 2-miler to me,’ he said, and for once Willie is wrong. Perhaps.
The star of the Christmas holiday period was undoubtedly Sir Gino. 4-year-olds are not designed to thrash horses with the greatest potential for greatness in Ireland or Britain on debut over fences in a Grade 1. Yet that is unquestionably what Sir Gino achieved. And it was a cake-walk; victory with ears cocked. Not 100% flawless on the jumping front but 9/10 with a sprinkling of stardust, all the same.
And another feather in the cap of Nicky Henderson; another reason why people should stop insulting the man with their less than worthwhile criticisms. The man is a flipping genius and we need to appreciate him while we have him amongst us. As Nico said after Constitution Hill. ‘I am lucky to work for him.’ As Nicky Henderson is lucky to have someone of Nico’s talent and dedication as his stable jockey. 
As for Ballyburn? Who knows. Doubtless Willie Mullins will pull a rabbit out of the hat twixt now and Cheltenham. Also, the Closutton horses are not pulling down trees at the moment. As with Lossiemouth, it might just have been an off-day for Ballyburn due to a small bug affecting the stable.

Galopin Des Champs versus Fact To File is the last of our festive match-ups and I believe it will take a performance akin to last year’s Savills Chase for Galopin to keep Fact To File from becoming odds-on for this season’s Cheltenham Gold Cup. On all known Leopardstown form, Galopin should win. In fact, on all known form the trophy should head back to Closutton. But Willie Mullins is struggling for a Graded winner this holiday season and it might be worth betting each-way on one of the few opposing horses not trained at Closutton. Heartwood would be my choice.

When a horse costs a zillion-quid expectations are that it will, at the very least, whizz through its novice campaign and go to Cheltenham favourite for one of novice championship races. Regent’s Stroll cost a zillion-quid, or in excess of £600,000, and yet in today’s Challow Hurdle he is opposed by half-a-dozen young horses, all winners, that did not cost anywhere close to a zillion-quid, though the Tizzard horse fetched £150,000 at auction, which, to me, is a scandalous, ridiculous amount of money to fork-out in search of achieving a dream-come-true. Given the failure rate of horses that cost similar scandalous, ridiculous amounts of money at auction, why do the silly-rich keep signing cheques with 6 and 7 noughts in the pay column? I hope Regent’s Stroll wins but as with Closutton, Ditcheat is very light on winners this Yuletide.

Just to repeat. Joseph O’Brien is some trainer. After Banbridge, the O’Brien trained Solness, at 28/1, took down Gaelic Warrior at Leopardstown. 

The upshot of a poor performing week for the Closutton horses is that Gordon Elliott will enter the New Year with a clear monetary advantage over Willie Mullins. As with Jack Kennedy finally winning a deserved jockeys’ championship last year, surely no one would begrudge Gordon achieving a first trainers’ title this season. It does not need saying that Willie Mullins is far from done and at some point in the near-future Closutton will hit full hurricane force but Gordon Elliott is as shrewd and his personable and he will leave no stone unturned to in his bid for glory. One thing is certain, we will not be seeing any of Gordon’s top horses in Britain until the Cheltenham Festival as every euro in the win column will count in his struggle to see off Willie Mullins.