CHELTENHAM - HOW WAS IT FOR YOU?

Firstly I want to correct something that was said by several of the I.T.V. presenters yesterday. Rich Ricci, great bloke that he is, is not the first man to own both the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup winners in the same year. Dorothy Paget, a woman even richer than Rich Ricci, owned both the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup winner in 1933, with Insurance and Golden Miller, though back then it was not an achievement worth heralding as the Champion Hurdle was as much a novelty to racing people as the Cross-Country race was in its formative years. 

Gallic Warrior was the easiest winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup since A Plus Tard. He was a magnificent sight, turning the most competitive Gold Cup in twenty-years into a procession of his brilliance, the brilliance of Paul Townend, now being talked about as being the best stable jockey Willie Mullins has ever had, and the magical training ability of the Master of Closutton. Though it has to asked why Mr. Mullins has campaigned this horse over so many different distances when quite clearly he has an abundance of stamina? Not that he has any need to answer the question as the answer was there for all to see yesterday. He has minded him, allowed to strengthen into the magnificent animal he is today, the quirky character moulded into an enthusiastic winning machine.

I must admit that I had the wind blown from my sails. I had suffered an embarrassing reverse in the Mares Chase, with yet again a Closutton horse rearranging a competitive looking race into a one-horse display of what the best of the best should look like. It will be a different story come Aintree in April when Panic Attack's stamina is put to the test. Dinoblue, though, is a mare with all the ability to take down the leading geldings over 2-mile 4. She should be given the opportunity, not that I am in any position to question the decisions of Willie Mullins as he gets things right more times than I have eaten bananas, and I eat a lot of bananas.

The defeat of my banker of the week, though, was as nothing compared to the body-blow of The Jukebox Man running out of puff between the last two fences. All is not lost, thankfully, as it was reported by Ben Jones that the horse suffered a respiratory noise during the race and will doubtless have an appointment made for him with the local vet to have part of his breathing apparatus tidied-up before a final race of the season at Punchestown. It was also reported, and the public should have been made aware of it before, not after the race, that The Jukebox Man had a small veterinary procedure carried out in the weeks leading up to Cheltenham, with a small 'pimple' removed from the 'underside of his epiglottis'. It does not matter a fig if it had no bearing on the result of the race, yet when assuring people in multiple interviews that all was well with the horse, is not actually telling a lie, Ben Pauling was being lax with the truth.

Another thing, whilst not being in anyway critical of Ben Pauling or any trainer who adopts the 'super-fresh' approach to their training - though, in fact, if what I am to write is not criticism, it is critical observation. Everyone is in agreement that Willie Mullins is a class apart, yet British trainers do not seem to recognise that the great man believes it is important to run a Cheltenham horse between Christmas and March. Gallic Warrior, Kargese and Lossiemouth all ran at the D.R.F., Il Etait Temps ran, and fell, at Ascot in February. It is a lesson yet to be learned by British trainers. Yes, Haiti Coulours had run in February and bombed-out yesterday but that might simply be he is a top-class handicapper and not a bone-fide Gold Cup horse. Super-fresh is taking a chance and I have yet to see the theory in anyway proven. Willie Mullin's way of doing things is proven year after year.

Though the Gold Cup had a memorable winner, the 2026 race should be memorialised with purple edging as the collapse and death of Envoi Allen was one of the most tragic events on a racecourse since One Man suffered a heart attack and a fall at Aintree all those years ago. It was the unfairest of deaths. Envoi Allen was having his final race; he was due  and deserved a long and happy retirement. It was cruel, on everyone, on the horse, his owners, trainer, jockey, former jockeys and the De Bromhead staff, that he should be denied what he truly deserved. This sport is such a devil of a leveller at times.