Donn McClean looks back on a fascinating Cheltenham Festival week, which saw Ireland win all seven races on Gold Cup day.
1. Drama
There was drama alright. The Champion Hurdle was drama from beginning to end. Or from fourth last flight to end.
It all appeared to be going to script. No early dramatics and no plans for late ones. King Of Kingsfield in front, we knew he would be, this game is so predictable. Brighterdaysahead in his slipstream, just as we expected. Constitution Hill and State Man following on, the big three all about to play their cards, and every other horse in the race playing supporting roles.
Window dressing only, we knew that.
Then there was that incident at the fourth last flight, unprecedented, Constitution Hill had never fallen in his life. He kind of hampered Golden Ace too, but nobody noticed. In an instant, on the fly, you tried to come to terms with the fact that Constitution Hill was out of the contest, that he wouldn’t be competing in the race from the bottom of the hill to the top of it, or coming up it on his own, as you started to focus on Brighterdaysahead. And where’s State Man?
“She’s not home yet,” said a voice behind you as they raced down the hill, and you quickly realised that the voice might not be wrong as Paul Townend and State Man sauntered into the home straight.
Nobody said "he’s not home yet", before State Man rose to the last, not that you heard anyway, but he wasn’t. They’re there to be jumped and State Man had jumped the first seven impeccably before the eighth one, the last one, caught him out. That left the way clear for Golden Ace, the 25/1 shot, the 12,000-guinea three-year-old, the mare who was in the race because her owner Ian Gosden wanted to have a go.
Fairytale or drama. It could fit in either genre. It belongs in both.
2. Memories
Henry de Bromhead said something that resonated after his mare Air Of Entitlement had won the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle on Thursday, talking about the previous day, when Marine Nationale and Jazzy Matty had both won.
There’s so much going on that we don’t know about, Henry said. Something like that. Like, things that we don’t understand. A greater power. That’s what I understood Henry to mean anyway.
And it resonated because Henry de Bromhead said it.
Marine Nationale’s victory in the Champion Chase on Wednesday brought inevitable memories of Michael O’Sullivan. The Supreme Novices’ Hurdle the previous day was run in his memory. The first race on Tuesday, the Michael O’Sullivan Supreme Novices’ Hurdle. Just like the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle, the race that Henry de Bromhead won on Thursday with Air Of Entitlement, was run in memory of Henry and Heather de Bromhead’s son Jack in 2023. Thursday was an emotional day too.
Michael O’Sullivan is synonymous with Marine Nationale, Barry Connell’s horse was the catalyst for the success story that Michael O’Sullivan’s career as a jockey became. They grew together, from unraced bumper horse and amateur jockey, claiming seven, to conditional jockey who couldn't utilise his claim in a Grade 1 race, to Supreme Novices’ Hurdle heroes.
Marine Nationale was brilliant on Wednesday under Sean Flanagan, and that’s only his sixth race over fences. Then Jazzy Matty won the Grand Annual. Serendipity off the charts. Henry might not be wrong.
3. Galopin
It wasn’t to be, but still, what a race, what a competitor. To win two Gold Cups and finish second in another puts Galopin Des Champs up there with Kauto Star and, while it’s not three in a row, it’s exclusive company.
He was slightly hampered when Ahoy Senor fell, but that is not the reason why he finished second and not first. He was just beaten by a better horse on the day on the ground. Inothewayurthinkin was very good, given a fine no-nonsense ride by Mark Walsh. He was obviously showing Gavin Cromwell the right signs at home during the preamble, right enough for owner JP McManus to come up with the supplementary entry fee. The Walk In The Park gelding is only seven, and it is not insignificant that the last two seven-year-old Gold Cup winners won it again when they were eight.
Inothewayurthinkin is JP McManus’ second Gold Cup winner, his second home-bred Gold Cup winner too after Synchronised in 2012, and he would be some handicap snip if he took on the Grand National now. A few have gone close (ref. Rough Quest, Garrison Savanah) but still no horse has completed the Gold Cup/Grand National double since Golden Miller.
4. Jockeys
It was a good week for Irish jockeys as a collective. Inothewayurthinkin was Mark Walsh’s fourth winner of the week, putting him in an exclusive club, a Champion Hurdle/Gold Cup winning jockey, and took him into second place in the Leading Jockey Award, just behind Paul Townend, who also rode four winners, plus one second, to Mark Walsh’s no seconds. It’s the fifth time that Paul Townend has been leading rider at the meeting and the fourth time in a row.
Rachael Blackmore was superb on Air Of Entitlement, delivered late and got up by a half a length, and she was at least as good, maybe even a little bit better, on Bob Olinger in the Stayers’ Hurdle. Ninth of the nine remaining runners on the run down the hill and delivered to hit the front on the run-in, a horse who was zero for three over three miles under Rules going into the race. That’s the full collection now for Rachael Blackmore, Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase, Grand National and now Stayers’ Hurdle.
Danny Gilligan had a week to remember too, two winners, Jazzy Matty and Wodhooh, another Martin Pipe Hurdle to go with his first win at the Festival on Better Days Ahead last year, and second on Stellar Story in the Brown Advisory Chase. Sean O’Keeffe won that Brown Advisory Chase on Lecky Watson, a third Festival win for the man who rode Galopin Des Champs to victory in the Martin Pipe Hurdle in 2021.
Keith Donoghue didn’t have it as easy on Stumptown over the banks in March as he had it on Stumptown over the banks in December, maybe an extra 8lb will do that to you, but he still delivered him to lead on the run-in. That’s a fifth Cross-Country Chase for the rider, he has won five of the last seven renewals.
Sean Flanagan doubled his Festival tally when he won the Champion Chase on Marine Nationale, and Rob James doubled his when he won the Hunters’ Chase on Wonderwall, and Danny Mullins took his tally to three when he drove Jimmy Du Seuil home, a County Hurdle to go with his two Stayers’ Hurdle wins on Flooring Porter.
And there were firsts for Barry Stone on Daily Present in the Kim Muir, his first ride in Britain, and for Jody Townend in the Champion Bumper on Bambino Fever, the mare she had ridden to win the Grade 2 mares’ bumper at the Dublin Racing Festival last month. She’d been watching her older brother Paul winning around here since she was a kid, she told us afterwards. It’s like getting to play on your older brother’s football team maybe, getting to play in the final, only much, much better.
5. Trainers
Unsurprisingly, Willie Mullins was responsible for half the 20 Irish-trained winners, which took the perennial champ’s Cheltenham Festival tally to 113, and that is quite remarkable. Two on Tuesday, three on Wednesday, one on Thursday and four on Friday, the first four, and you had people saying before the Gold Cup that, if only he had had a horse in the Hunters’ Chase, he could have gone through the card.
We had more evidence, if more were needed, that Gavin Cromwell is operating at the very top of this game. It wasn’t just that he won the Gold Cup with Inothewayurthinkin, which, just as with Mark Walsh, took him into an exclusive club, a Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup-winning trainer. That was his second winner of the week, after Stumptown’s win in the Cross-Country Chase, which, along with his seconds and thirds, took him into second place in the Leading Trainer Award behind Willie Mullins.
It was as much about the team that Gavin Cromwell took to Cheltenham, and that he was probably unlucky to come away with just two winners. Only By Night, Robbies Rock, Sixandahalf, Thecompanysergeant and Brides Hill all finsihed second. Malina Girl, Vanillier and Midnight It Is finsihed third. It was a stellar week for the Meath trainer.
Henry de Bromhead had two winners too, Air Of Entitlement and Bob Olinger, and others who ran really well in defeat, Heart Wood and The Big Westerner, Ballyadam and Raglan Road. Marine Nationale’s Champion Chase win doubled his own and trainer Barry Connell’s Cheltenham Festival tally, and Wonderwall’s Hunters’ Chase win doubled trainer Sam Curling’s tally, after Angels Dawn’s win in the Kim Muir in 2023. Daily Present took Paul Nolan’s total to four and Puturhandstogether took Joseph O’Brien’s to five, including three of the last seven renewals of the Fred Winter Hurdle.
Cian Collins took one horse to Cheltenham this year, Jazzy Matty, and he went home with the Grand Annual trophy. Ken Budds also took one, Anyway, a 125/1 shot for the Jack Richards Novices’ Handicap Chase, 19th best of the 19 runners according to the market, and he ran a massive race to finish second to Caldwell Potter.
Gordon Elliott had to wait until the last race on the last day for his winner, Wodhooh, who could have been called as the most likley winner from a long way out. The Sundowners Partnership’s mare is now seven for seven over hurdles, and there is no knowing how good she could be. A lot of the Gordon Elliott horse ran well in defeat, The Yellow Clay, Stellar Story, Better Days Ahead, Romeo Coolio, Teahupoo, Ndaawi.
But it just shows you how difficult it is to win at the Cheltenham Festival, and how much it means when you do.
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