cheltenham festival 2022. day 1.

​I make no excuses for my lamentable tipping attempts yesterday. I blow hot and cold and yesterdays I was very cold indeed. Frodon got jumped into and finished lame on a back leg. Thought you would like to know.
My rubbish tipping though did not deflate the cocoon of brilliance provided by Constitution Hill and Honeysuckle.
I am not someone who is easily sold by others claiming that this horse or this jockey is going to be the next superstar. I was late on the A.P. McCoy is ‘the best we’ve seen in a very long time’ and am prone to still disbelieve the hype even when a horse or jockey reaches retirement. To my mind, both Dawn Run and Best Mate remain very good horses, though neither are in my ledger of legends. Others disagree but they are plain wrong.
I am though now firmly on board with the cheerleaders who have claimed all season that legend status awaits Constitution Hill. I was blown away by the ease of his victory in the Supreme. The horses behind him have the potential to win good races this and next season. Jonbon in particular. Fences for him next season, I suspect. Yes, it was a pity that Dysart Dynamo came a cropper and it will be interesting if he can get any closer to Constitution Hill if they should meet at Aintree or Punchestown. But the Henderson horse won on the bridle in a time 5-seconds faster than it took Honeysuckle to win the Champion Hill. If I could spell the word, I would describe his performance as the most phenomenal I have seen at the Cheltenham Festival since Sprinter Sacre won the 2013 Champion Chase.
But don’t hold your breath in anticipation of Constitution Hill taking on Honeysuckle at Punchestown or anywhere else between now and the next Festival. Precocity is not to be found Nicky Henderson’s blood-line. Keep novices to novice company and reap the rewards is the Seven Barrows mantra and the poles will flip before Henderson departs from the tried and tested route.
The 7Ib mares allowance is an annoyance and I wish the B.H.A. would take a look at the issue when it comes to championship races. 7Ibs is unfair and illogical. If Honeysuckle is already 7Ib better than the majority of her opponents, giving her another 7Ib for no better reason than she is a mare and obviously weaker than geldings, allows her to compete off 1-stone better terms. She is a wonderful mare, perhaps the best female hurdler of all-time, yet the allowance makes it difficult to judge her against those who have come before. A 3Ib allowance would level the playing field, though only in championship races. The overall 7Ib allowance and the mares only races are highly successful and the conditions should be left as they are.
When it comes to tactical awareness and deciding which tactics to deploy there is no one riding today better than Rachael Blackmore. Not only can she ‘see round corners’, she seems to be able to judge in one glance how her rivals are travelling. I dare say, at times, she must come back in and apologise for making ‘a bollocks of things’ but never, I should imagine, in the races that matter. She is a wonderful jockey and a credit to both the sport and her family.
In a similar vein, I thought Tom Cannon gave Edwardstown an uncomplicated, no frills, yet effective ride to win the Arkle. He is a jockey, now Alan King is giving him the opportunity to regularly sit on a better class of horse, who has proved his worth this season and is deserving of picking up a better class of outside ride.
4-3 to Great Britain. Who would have thought it?