is it really over ...

​Although, after his sixth win, I said to myself, ‘not Willie again’, and after his tenth I was having to grit my teeth to recognise the merit in the achievement, J.P.’s dominance of the meeting I entertained with a warm glow in my heart. J.P.McManus is the beating heart of National Hunt racing, at least as far as I am concerned and my fervent wish for the sport is that he remains the beating heart for the next twenty-years.
Not that I approve of all things J.P. I do not care for some of the names he gives his home-breds, and by that, I mean possibly all of them. Inothewayurthinkin (I had to open up the Racing Post to be certain of spelling the name correctly. I had not.) for example, has always offended me due to the torturous manipulation of the English language in order to have I know the way your thinking fit the 18-character rule for naming racehorses. But it is J.P., so I forgive him, which will bring great relief to him, I am sure.
I thought the Gold Cup this year was the least compelling of the championship races, with none of the drama of the Champion Hurdle, emotion of the Champion Chase, the brilliance of Fact To File in the Ryanair or the sentiment of Bob Ollinger (Bob) winning the Stayers Hurdle. It was not, I promise you, due to yet another of my confident predictions going so far south icicles hung from my ignorance but because it was rather a poor renewal of the race, compounded by Galopin Des Champs failing to nail his name alongside side the other great horses to have won 3 Gold Cups.
Do not get me wrong, the winner is a quality horse who won impressively. I have my doubts, though, whether he will double-up next season and hope, and suspect, he does not turn out at Aintree in 3-weeks in pursuit of the double only Golden Miller has ever achieved. I dare say Gentlemansgame ran a blinder yesterday but he was too close at the finish to the first two for my liking to think the form trustworthy. Thanks to the good ground, it was not a gruelling Gold Cup this year and if they come out of the race in good shape I can see the 3rd and 4th running in the Aintree National, with both having a fair-to-middling chance of being there at the finish. Of the two, I would prefer the grey as I am unsure if Monty’s Star jumps well enough.
Galopin Des Champs will only be 9 come next March and given soft ground he could easily turn the form around with his conqueror yesterday. After all, apart from the absent The Jukebox Man, did any of the novices knock your eye out at Cheltenham? If Lecky Watson is the best 3-mile novice of the season then the first two yesterday have nothing to worry about. The state of top-class staying chases at the moment is poor in comparison to years gone by. Doubtless it will rise from the ashes of ordinariness, yet if the cream should ever be seen to rise again amongst British trainers something radical needs to be in the offing. The novice chase programme in Britain must be altered so that trainers can bring their best stayers along quietly, without being forced into handicaps too early in their careers. It is not a matter to be discussed tomorrow; it is an emergency and needs to be dealt with accordingly.

That said, there are green shoots in you look hard enough. For instance, although the first and second in the Spa Hurdle (the potato race) were trained in Ireland, the 3rd, Derryhassen Paddy, 4th, Yellow Car, 5th, Wendigo (very unlucky), 6th, Jig’s Forge and the 7th, Ma Shantou, are all British-trained. They all might be novice chasers of the future; might be, as Nicky Henderson found out with Lucky Place, as the current programme book makes life very difficult for trainers with the sort of horse that should be destined for the two championship novice chases at the Festival.

Finally, my favourite race this year was the Champion Hurdle. It was a victory for an owner with the balls and foresight to roll the dice; it was a victory for a trainer low on numbers but high on ability and character; it proved the decision to run Lossiemouth in the easier race wrong by a country mile and it was wonderful that someone who can be described as a ‘journeyman jockey’ had a glorious day in the limelight. And the name, too, Golden Ace was appropriate for the moment.