The 2.25 at Punchestown on Sunday was a classic. Let’s have more of that please.
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A shameless plug for my tipping ability first off – last week’s tip for the weekend won, as Lucky Place claimed the Ascot Hurdle, advised at 12/1 the Wednesday before.
Joe’s BloGG
Comparatively, though the bravery of the competitors of the 3.00 at Haydock on Saturday should be commended given the conditions, there appeared worrisome worlds between two races run fewer than 24 hours apart. The speed of their respective finishes was down to the disparity between the two races’ distance and conditions, and yet the visuals also suggested racing games which are currently poles apart.
Ireland’s John Durkan Chase was not only a magnificent race, but the first four home share the first four positions in the ante-post Cheltenham Gold Cup market. Royale Pagaille, after winning his second successive Betfair Chase, is only available with two bookmakers for the race, and at 33/1 at that. He has form figures in the Gold Cup of 656 between 2021-2023, so even that price looks skinny.
In second, Grey Dawning is the last, shrivelling beacon of hope, but even in Haydock’s fog of war, the white horse appeared more like an ashening bonfire. He is 16/1 almost across the board for the Gold Cup; in the majority of the markets, he is the only British-trained horse in the top 13 in the betting.
Piercing the misty veil for a glance of the Betfair Chase finale, you could have been forgiven for thinking black-and-white had returned to ITV, and not just because Grey Dawning was involved. The runner-up’s appearance is fitting in this season in which the magnetic fields of British and Irish racing are only being dragged further and further apart. A bright and talented light he may be, but as Harry Skelton tried in vain to cajole his defence against Royale Pagaille it felt not only that he was losing to Charlie Deutsch, but losing against time itself.
Even in a nine-year span in which only one Gold Cup hero has been sent out by a British stable, this is a stark outlook for the staying chase scene. All four Grade 1 novice or juvenile hurdling events went to Irish yards at the 2024 Cheltenham Festival too, so it is not as if the next generation is waiting round the corner.
In the clear and cloud of Punchestown just a single day later, we were transported deliriously back to the present, and even beyond. Green and gold, chocolate and yellow, purple and red, all danced towards our screens in frantic and fast furore. Galopin Des Champs and Fastorslow were our existing heroes, Seabiscuit and Secretariat if you will, determinedly but fallibly trying to fend off the new brigade in old colours.
JP McManus has enjoyed such longstanding success in the National Hunt game, but even he must have rarely felt a thrill as passionate as that which accompanied Fact To File’s game repulsion of Spillane’s Tower in the 2024 John Durkan. The pair are new money from an experienced mind, and their battle was played out in the highest definition.
The clarity of the Irish jumps scene will continue only to be enhanced. Ballyburn is lurking just a season away, as are the likes of Stellar Story, Dancing City and Majborough, all of whom may blossom in kind. Spillane’s Tower emerged relatively from left field, but who is to say another will not emulate his hoofprints?
British trainers may attempt to cling to the hope that it will be their campmate who springs suddenly eternal. However, if the Gold Cup market is to be relied upon, and the bookmakers are so rarely wrong, there is a 92% chance the undiscovered spring in its coil is of Irish origin.
Grey Dawning is the final gleam on a relic fighting gold-hooped reality. It is time for the industry to stop blindly believing and get with the times, or face years of hurt akin only to England’s football team. And we know how much that stings.
GG Jumps Journal – Racing’s Welfare State & Its State of Welfare
I hope those of you who read last week’s column enjoyed a fun poke around racing’s key components, and the measures by which we can improve. However, as it’s Safer Gambling Week, more serious matters are on my mind than surveys and Seabiscuit. Joe’s BloGG By design or by ill chance, topics touched upon in…
Wed 20 Nov 2024Fascinations & Irritations
A stock take on the weekend just gone has got me thinking about the following.
Fascination – Cross Country Chases
GG’s own esteemed Andrew Mount refers to the Cross Country Chase at the Festival as the bookies’ “bathroom break”, as it is a race which attracted less interest on course than any other. Admittedly, such races are almost certainly a better watch on a TV screen than the stands, but I find them a charming addition to any meeting at Cheltenham or Punchestown.
This is primarily to the mockery it can make of standard formbooks. The best, and my favourite, example of this is the 14-year-old Singing Banjo, rated a meagre 88 in regulation chases, beating Coko Beach in the La Touche Cup at Punchestown in May. The grey may have been conceding 21lb, but he would have been conceding 71lb in a normal chase given his own rating of 159.
That is five stone’s (five stone!) worth of form overturned by the banks and the hedges and Ruby’s Double. I still don’t know why it’s Ruby’s Double, or even whether it’s a bank or a hedge, but I always enjoy Jerry Hannon mentioning it in commentary. I don’t advocate for more Cross Country chases, but the current number we are treated to is a delightful remove.
Irritation – Horses Being Left Out of Stable Tours
There is no obligation for National Hunt trainers to be completely open and honest about every single horse’s exact wellbeing when a journalist comes to tour their facility. They are well within their rights to keep something back to themselves so as not to completely give the game away, especially as paying owners deserve the genuine inside knowledge.
Nevertheless, it is frustrating when certain horses disappear without trace from any reporting. A couple of examples occurred this week in the tours of Willie and Emmet Mullins’ camps with Champ Kiely and Jeroboam Machin both omitted from any mention.
The trouble with this is that it leads to rumour and fear where a single line amounting to little more than “they’ve been unwell”, “they’re out for the season” would suffice as to what is upcoming. I am not asking for reams of verse detailing their struggles to get them fit, but there does not have to be financial interest to wonder as to a horse’s prospects.
GG Jumps Journal – So What Do You Know About Racing?
In racing circles, the fascination and fear surrounding public perception of the sport is inescapable. Constant and consistent changes to the Grand National, the padding and colouring of hurdles, and repeated reassertions of welfare on ITV Racing are reminders that there is a world which spans far beyond our own, blissfully unaware that Ballyburn might…
Wed 13 Nov 2024Tip for the Weekend
As remarked above, and as will now be remarked again, we had a 12/1 winner for the column on Saturday courtesy of Lucky Place in the Ascot Hurdle. Three tips of wildly varying outcomes have so far emerged from these articles: a tailed off last for Next in the Breeders’ Cup, a non runner (who was a certainty) a week later, and now a winner, leaving us ten points up (or two points at SP if you really must). I should probably quit while I’m ahead right?
Absolutely not. Galia Des Liteaux is this week’s flag-bearer in the Coral Gold Cup (3.00 Newbury on Saturday). She ran the proverbial screamer when eighth in the Grand National in April, can be forgiven a comeback run over a trip too short, and now faces a test she should revel in. She is 2lb lower than her National run and only 2lb higher than when a clear second in the Classic Chase at Warwick last year carrying 11st 10lb. This is an average renewal, but she is an above average mare on her day.