fact to file, 25% + 37% & punchestown.

​Remember when a good few racing experts were calling out Fact To File as the next Cheltenham Gold Cup winner after he beat Galopin Des Champs in the John Durkin? And do you remember how quickly he became dubbed ‘disappointing’ once Galopin Des Champs had gained his revenge not once but twice? Now, after one spectacular win at Cheltenham, in a sub-standard Ryanair over 2-mile 4-furlongs, he has become a superstar, tipped to beat the current 2-mile Champion Chase winner (again, not the best 2-mile Champion Chase of recent years) at Punchestown this evening over 2-miles. He might win; he will certainly finish second. But can Willie Mullins have got this horse so wrong? He looked all-over a stayer as a novice, yet now he is a speed horse. Really.
Given how the Cheltenham Gold Cup played out this season, I am in the camp that believed Fact To File would have been right there in the mix. That said, Willie Mullins has got wrong Gaelic Warrior wrong this season. He is not a soft-ground 2-mile chaser but a sound surface 3-mile chaser. Who knows, if he got out of bed with a smile on his muzzle, he might put a hoof up to his trainer by winning the Gold Cup next season.
So, I am in the Marine Nationale camp today. It might even be the only Grade 1 at Punchestown that does not go to Closutton this week.

The dominance of Willie Mullins in Ireland really comes home, even when he often has more horses beaten in one race than another top trainer has horse running in all the races on the card, when you realise that in Ireland he has achieved a 25% strike rate. Think about it; he will often run 4, 5 or 6-horses in any one race, and yet his dominance is so profound that come the final meeting of the season he has a 1 in 4 strike rate.
Paul Townend has not only run away with the jockeys’ championship but he has achieved the trophy with less rides than many of his rivals. His strike rate is a whopping 37%. Patrick Mullins has a strike rate of 33%.
It would be interesting to know what Vincent O’Brien’s strike rate was when he was winning the Irish and British trainers’ championship.

When our racing journalists are critical of changes to the Cheltenham Festival, with some still wanting to return to 3-days (as I believe would make sense while the pool of available top-class horses is as low as it is at present, and then only for a limited number of years) or decry the out-dated National Hunt Chase becoming a handicap and not restricted to amateurs anymore, or any of the other moans and groans that come from the pages of the Racing Post, I always compare Cheltenham to Punchestown, the National Hunt Festival of Ireland.
The first race on the first day of the Punchestown Festival is a Cross-Country Chase over the banks for amateur riders. Later in the week there is a hunter chase restricted to horses owned by local farmers and Ireland’s longest race is the prestigious La Touche, a banks race that is such a speciality that a 13-year-old was able to win it last season. There are also innumerable bumper races amongst the Grade 1’s. Punchestown is an all-the-fun-of-the-fair sort of meeting, a genuine championing of all that is good about Irish racing, the reason why National Hunt retains its popularity in the country of jumping’s origins.
We need to stop being so sniffy and Grade 1-centric; all horse races are horse races and if you took away the labels and the importance we as humans build into some races and not others, we might just enjoy our sport for what is and not what we imply it is. There is great pride to be had in winning the Farmers race or the La Touche, every bit as much, perhaps more, even, than winning any of the Grade 1’s.
One thing is for sure, Willie Mullins will not be winning either the Farmers race, the La Touche or the opening race of the meeting. And that gives others the opportunity of a small moment of the limelight. Perhaps we should leave a few spaces at the Cheltenham National Hunt Festival that Willie and his rivals cannot occupy.