An Emotional Festival

Racing is a sport, more than any other, that can tear at the emotions and the Cheltenham Festival 2013 certainly played the entire gamut of emotions.

From the highs of the scintillating destruction of a high class field by Sprinter Sacre to, just over 25 hours later, the gut wrenching numbness as jockey JT McNamara was airlifted to hospital.

The highs began on the opening day, where after the weather scare, Hurricane Fly regained the Champion Hurdle chased home by last years chanmpion.

Quevega

Then we had Quevega winning the Mare's hurdle for the fifth time. It was a run which reminded me of Sea The Stars winning the Arc. A horse emerging from a seemingly impossible position to run on to glory. The sort of run which makes the days spent watching Class 6 plodders all the more worthwhile.

On Thursday we saw a new World Hurdle champion as Solwhit took, or is that borrowed, Big Bucks crown.

Whilst on Friday we saw an epic Gold Cup, a Gold Cup worthy of its status, as Bobs Worth came home an impressive winner. It was a contest where it was impossible to call the winner until the very final stages. There may not have been no Kauto Star (although he looked superb as he led the parade), Imperial Commander or Denman but, being brutal, the race did not need them.

Our Conor

Friday also saw the next generation, both equine and human come to the fore, with the two coming together in the opener as Our Conor and young Bryan Cooper both made a striking impression in the opener. Our Conor, arguably, doing the second best demolition job of the week.

Sprinter Sacre

The consummate demolition job came from Sprinter Sacre who made it eight from eight with his imperious victory in the Queen Mother Champion Chase leading to many dubbing him the Frankel of jump racing.

It wasn’t just the manner of his victory, it was the impressive way he cleared his fences, spring heeling his way to victory in a near faultless display of jumping.

Sizing Europe, a previous winner of the contest, is no mug, yet he was well and truly mugged by the Nicky Henderson trained winner and listening to the emotional post-race interviews with Henderson it was evident he is in awe of the horse.

On Thursday though, we saw the other side of our sport. On the equine front we lost the talented, promising Matuhi. Who paid the ultimate equine price in the Byrne Group Plate, despite vets battling for almost an hour to save him. Earlier in the afternoon had Davy Russell being taken to hospital with his punctured lung.

But when we though things couldn’t get much worse, the danger of this sport was no more firmly underlined by the horrific injury suffered by top amateur rider JT (John Thomas) McNamara. One moment he was riding Galaxy Rock to the first fence, the next he was prostrate on the turf with a broken neck.

There were not too many concerns in the crowd or media centre as the fence was by-passed on the second circuit but as time progressed the news began to spread.

When we heard an air ambulance had been called there was a realisation this was no ordinary fall and although there were some updates over the public address system it was only when contact was made with those more closely involved the full realisation of what had happened became apparent.

Eventually airlifted to hospital in an induced coma, he has undergone surgery and we all hope and pray the outcome is positive.

JT was certainly been to the forefront of the riders thoughts on Friday and there were no exuberant celebrations.

It must had been a difficult day for the riders for although JT McNamara is an amateur rider as a 37 year old he has been in the weighing room longer than most of the riders and the lieks of AP McCoy and Barry Geraghty have been friends with him for near on 20 years. Also in the back of their minds must has been the thought "there but the grace of God go I."

The accident has demonstrated how, in a split second, a jockey can one moment be in control of his mount and the next sustain a life threatening, life changing injury.

On a positive front the treatment given to both Matuhi and McNamara shows how seriously racing treats the welfare of its participants, both equine and human. They must be the only workers at the racecourse who hope they do spend the day doing nothing at all. Thankfully most days they have to do very little but on the days when they do have to do their job there are none better.

Seeing the air ambulance circling the course also reminded me of the excellent job they do. What is so wrong is all the air ambulances in this country rely solely on charitable donations and sponsorship. They do not receive any money from central Government.

The Injured Jockeys Fund rightly gets a huge amount of support from those in racing and those who follow the sport and the IJF will be closely involved in JT McNamara’s journey ahead.

However if you had a successful punting week at Cheltenham perhaps you would also like to give a few quid of your winnings to your local Air Ambulance service – it may be you, a love one or a friend who needs a big red or yellow helicopter one day in the future.

A Veritable Banquet

We may be living in the age of technological change and advancement but racing is still at the mercy of Mother Nature, where even the purported “all weather” courses have fallen victim to the harsh winter conditions.

Of course it’s the turf racing which is suffering most of all and if it isn’t snow and frost throwing the racing program into disarray then it is standing water from the melting snow and subsequent heavy rain – racing doesn’t seem to have a chance in the battle with Mother Nature at the moment.

There was some respite at the weekend where, following a Herculean effort by ground-staff, Cheltenham was able to stage its Festival Trials Day. A meeting which was the brainchild of Edward Gillespie and one which has grown in significance year by year. This year all the cancellations helped the day even more as, with the dearth of racing, many of the big guns were not able to avoid one another.

The day before the meeting a friend of mine called the Cheltenham card “the feast after the famine” as, with due respect to Ayr who managed a mid-week turf meeting, us National Hunt Fans had been deprived of our staple diet.

As it turned out the feast description turned out to be somewhat understated, it wasn’t a feast at all, it turned out to be a veritable banquet.

I have to admit the day did not start well from a racing perspective. In the opener we saw a defeated odds-on shot in the shape of Irish Saint, although it has to be said his vanquisher Rolling Star was a worthy winner.

It was in the second race where it looked as though it was going to be “one of those afternoons to forget” and everything was going to go wrong. The Novices’ Chase went to the most unexpected winner, in the shape of Vino Griego, a win that left most observers speechless as the horse who has been called so many bad names in the past sluiced home in the testing conditions.

Were we going to be destined for an afternoon of shock results as the weather, once again, seemed determined to play havoc with our sport?

The answer was no as the card really picked up. Katenko confirmed his recent Sandown win was no fluke, even prompting trainer Venetia Williams to suggest he may have a go at the Gold Cup.

Potentially overshadowing that victory was the fall of Lucinda Russell’s rising star Bold Sir Brian who was beaten when falling at the last. It was one of those falls which makes your stomach knot as the horse was motionless on the turf and the screens were quickly erected.

It was one of those falls where you instinctively fear the worse but there was some hope as the screens remained up but the van which removes stricken horses remained resolutely where it was parked up.

Then the screens wobbled, came down and Bold Sir Brian had risen Lazarus like from the turf, hopefully to fight another day, with the crowd applauding as his handler took him back to the stables.

It lifted the atmosphere greatly even in the press room, usually the most cynical place on the racecourse there were smiles as the horse walked back.

Next up was the bonus race, the Victor Chandler Chase, postponed from a snowed over Ascot the previous week.

One of the things about racing is we are always looking for the “next big star” and the VC featured on in the shape of Sprinter Sacre. Nicky Henderson’s charge was an impressive winner of last years Arkle and has taken to chasing like a duck to water. Beating a high class Tingle Creek field last time out this was his run on heavy ground.

I suppose the sign of a good horse is he treats all conditions equally and he showed no problems with the testing conditions as he sluiced home to a 14 length victory, giving him an aggregate winning distance of 95 lengths in his seven chase runs. His “narrowest” victory being a “mere” six lengths.

The appreciative crowd knew they were watching a star and he was roared home.

The roar that greeted Sprinter Sacre was absolutely nothing compared to the roar which accompanied the finale of our next contest, the Argento Chase, considered a Gold Cup trial.

Imperial Commander is something of a fragile horse. Runner up to Kauto Star in the 2009 Betfair Chase at Haydock, a race which many will say produced the most epic finish ever and winner of the Gold Cup in 2010 he hasn’t been seen in a competitive race since pulling up in the 2011 renewal of national hunt racing Blue Riband.   

Yet despite a 680 day lay off he cleared the final fence of the Argento in front and it looked as though we were going to be in for a fairy-tale finish at the course Imperial Commander loves.

It’s an oft used cliché  but the roar from the crowd was deafening. Certainly nobody in the stands could hear Richard Hoiles describing the finish.

Maybe it was the cacophony of noise, maybe it was being off the course for 680 days, maybe it was the testing conditions, maybe a combination of all three but the Commender was tiring on the tough run-in and, as the form book will attest for time in memorial, he had no extra in the dying strides as Cape Tribulation edged past him to deny him a perfect return.

Indeed Imperial Commander looked so tired, for a brief moment I though his rider Paddy Brennan would jump off him straight away.

It was a brave performance and if the race has not taken too much out of him he must again be a serious contender for the big one in March.

It wasn’t just the horses who stole the limelight. Multiple champion jockey AP McCoy once again showed why he is the best we have ever seen with two totally contrasting victories.

It is often said McCoy will somehow get a horse home where others wouldn’t and At Fishers Cross was a perfect example. The New One is another of those touted about rising stars and he looked set to take the novices’ hurdle and without McCoy being around he may well have done.

However McCoy managed to get something extra out of At Fishers Cross and with a late final thrust he got his mount home by a neck.

By contrast he rode Mr Watson from the front in the final contest of the afternoon. By the final flight it looked as though Kings Lad was going to pull off a shock as he came upsides.

Some jockeys would have panicked, not McCoy, he knew exactly what he had under him and on the run-in he opened up the throttle a little bit more and won pulling away.

It was a sublime afternoons racing, it is what racing is all about.

 

It was “only” Festival Trials day, in truth it wasn’t “only” anything – it was an afternoons racing which would have been worthy of The Festival itself – those of us fortunate enough to be there were able to feast at the top table.