It’s the FA Cup third round this weekend, which means it’s the season for sporting upsets. This raises a question: why does racing not celebrate its underdogs?
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Joe’s BloGG
Two reasons stand out for the opposing poles of football and horse racing when it comes to our attitude to outsiders. Firstly, fans of racing do not support horses in the way they do their teams, meaning that if you have backed a horse to victory in lower stakes before they step up in class, you are less likely to keep the faith in a better quality race purely on sentiment.
Secondly, and more importantly, we back favourites in the hope of dismantling the bookmakers. If anything, the punters are the perennial underdog in racing, so we don’t need a representation in equine form to attach our unlikely dreams to.
Nevertheless, some unlikely stories draw the imagination skyward. The top five below have been pulled not just from the recesses of my own racing mind, but for the drama they wrought across the national consciousness, not just our sport’s own.
5. Mon Mome – 2009 Grand National
Regardless of what Mon Mome subsequently proved as a racehorse, a 100/1 shot winning the Grand National will always be a headline maker. Giving this a rewatch prior to writing, it is forgotten just how dominant he was at the finish, and just how charming the late Liam Treadwell’s smile really was.
This was a massive upset both for his price and the fact he denied runner-up and defending champion Comply Or Die a place in National folklore. Equally, his form needed an extremely generous view to give him a chance, as most 100/1 shots do: he was only 10th in the ‘08 National, beaten 58 lengths by Comply Or Die off a 7lb lower mark. He had won at Cheltenham in the interim, but was only seventh in Haydock’s Grand National Trial two months before his National success, then the last of eight finishers in the Midlands National at Uttoxeter.
Both of those came on desperate ground, so the return to livelier going almost certainly played its part. His trainer, Venetia Williams, is a renowned master with staying chasers too, though ironically usually on softer ground. Nevertheless, it took some serious faith or pinsticking to back him on the day and he became the first 100/1 winner of the race for 42 years. Which makes 100/1 winners more likely than average, I suppose.
Mon Mome never won again, but arguably his greatest achievement was to come, as he was third in the following year’s Gold Cup, an even more oft-forgotten epitaph to his day in the spotlight. He was also still bang in contention in AP McCoy’s National the following year before falling five out. Ultimately, this would be like Ipswich having beaten a Premier League team when in League One two years ago: clearly a shock, but one proven to be likelier than expected in hindsight.
4. Coneygree – 2015 Gold Cup
This is an entirely different type of upset. There is no obvious team-related comparison for Coneygree winning the 2015 Cheltenham Gold Cup as a novice, but his rise could be akin to Kylian Mbappe or Pele taking their debut World Cups by storm. That is not an upset in football terms, but it certainly deserves that title in the racing world.
There were 16 runners in this Gold Cup, a notably deep field and one that has only been equalled once since, in 2019. It was also the biggest field for six years prior to that and in second and third were horses trained and owned respectively by Willie Mullins and Rich Ricci, and Noel Meade and Gigginstown House Stud. Talk about a giant killer – Mark Bradstock was exactly that, as he trained a string of only ten horses at the time of Coneygree’s accession to greatness.
However, the most critical factor in this being a Douglas vs Tyson level of overthrowing was that this was only Coneygree’s fourth run over fences. He may have been an unbeaten 7/1 shot, but that level of inexperience is meant to disarm you in a Gold Cup. Instead, he put up a jumping display for the ages.
Taking the lead narrowly after the first fence, he never relinquished it, providing Nico De Boinville with a breakthrough success on the big stage. Within six months, he would become Nicky Henderson’s stable jockey, though Coneygree suffered from persistent fitness issues thereafter and never reached the same heights again.
3. Annie Power (Glen’s Melody) – 2015 Mares’ Hurdle
Oh you’re gonna hate me for this one.
It is important to have variety in your repertoire and this is yet another different kind of sucker punch. It should be made clear that the bookies are never the underdogs, and that this was a punching down rather than an overhaul. Yet, the fall of Annie Power at the final flight in the 2015 Mares’ Hurdle, just three days before Coneygree’s glory, was reportedly worth £50 million to the betting industry. She was a modern Devon Loch, who is an unlucky omission from this list, but a contemporary example was preferred.
This was one of just two defeats in Annie Power’s career, significant as she would obviously have won this race had she stood up. The shock factor both live, and at home, and in betting shops up and down the land, was palpable; it was a moment in time rather than a seismic earthquake. 1/2 shots get beaten all the time after all, but rarely in such fashion and on such a stage.
Is there a reasonable comparison? Perhaps a late comeback by a juggernaut from a seemingly unsaveable dilemma: Manchester United’s treble-clinching Champions League final, or neighbours City’s late show against QPR to seize the 2012 Premier League title spring to mind.
Annie Power laid her Cheltenham hoodoo to rest (she had also been a beaten favourite in the 2014 World Hurdle) when scooting home in the 2016 Champion Hurdle. She retired having won 15 of 17 races, but one of those two losses remains a haunting reminder to backers that anything, even a £50 million spill, is possible in horse racing.
2. Norton’s Coin – 1990 Gold Cup
If you thought Mark Bradstock was unheralded, Sirrell Griffiths, the trainer of 1990’s 100/1 Gold Cup-winning hero Norton’s Coin, was a Welsh dairy farmer, simply training a handful of horses as a hobby rather than profession.
Norton’s Coin’s triumph is a number of upsets rolled into one. A nobody trainer, a horse without a win all season and who was a tailed-off last of six in Desert Orchid’s third King George triumph, and a 100/1 price to Dessie’s 10/11. Only 200/1 no-hoper The Bakewell Boy went off at longer odds and was pulled up early.
Norton’s Coin took some time to warm to his jumping, but that provided the key to this unlikeliest of underdog victories. He had jumped terribly at Kempton in the King George, but broadly took flight swiftly here, and ultimately overcame Jenny Pitman’s Toby Tobias in a prolonged Cheltenham Hill battle to muted cries from the crowd.
He fell as a ten-year-old when attempting an unlikely repeat, but he was still in contention at the time. Overall, just one more victory ensued beyond his sunshine day. Given his and his trainer’s lack of reputation, as well as his defeat of one of the most popular racehorses of all time, this can only be akin to a non-league side defeating a Premier League. Let’s say Rochdale beating Liverpool, to pick two completely random examples.
1. Foinavon – 1967 Grand National
The ultimate and most famous upset of them all. If Norton’s Coin is Rochdale overcoming Liverpool, then Foinavon was the same upset, but in the FA Cup final, with all of Liverpool’s players eating a dodgy lasagne at half-time.
Trained by Tom Dreaper in his early career, Foinavon was a stablemate and ownership kin of Arkle, being owned by Anne, Duchess of Westminster and named after a Scottish mountain. However, it was with John Kempton, who famously went to Worcester instead of Aintree on the day of the 1967 Grand National, for whom Foinavon would make incomparable history.
Foinavon was never top class, and won just three times before visiting Aintree, but he had finished fourth in the 1966 King George, more famous for being Arkle’s final race, as well as down the field in the Gold Cup. Nonetheless, racing was different in those days in terms of no-hopers running in big races, so Foinavon’s King George fourth is barely comparable to Mon Mome’s Gold Cup third.
Describing his National on its own is a fruitless exercise in prose. Just watch it below, and see if you can occasionally spot him in the distance before the 23rd fence drama only black and white cameras could capture with such illumination.
Even after he is the only horse to avoid the unbridled chaos, he still looks like being caught before chief pursuer Honey End finally falls foul of the impossible chase. 100/1 he may be known as, but 444/1 he paid out on the Tote. Infamy in blinkered form, his is a spectre long banished at Aintree’s gentler modern day test, but if any loose horse breaks clear of the field in future Nationals, keep an eye out in the background in case he goes chasing again.
GG Jumps Journal – A Racing Fan’s Guide to Boxing Day
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Wed 18 Dec 2024Fascinations & Irritations
It has been a few weeks, so there is plenty to catch up on among racing’s fascinations since Christmas.
Fascination – Big Winning Margins
Foinavon eat your heart out – he only won his National by 15 lengths despite being given about two furlongs worth of headstart two thirds into the race. Brighterdayshead put 30 lengths between herself and her rivals in the Grade 1 Neville Hotels Hurdle at Leopardstown Hurdle.
Sometimes, margins tell the entire story, such as Constitution Hill’s 22-length Supreme Novices’ Hurdle victory over Jonbon. Determining whether it was a freakish performance from Gordon Elliott’s mare is trickier; it was certainly extraordinary that she maintained a seriously strong gallop and won in a rapid time, but State Man clearly did not turn up, with Paul Townend giving the leading Gigginstown duo too much rope.
However, it is still some spectacle to witness a horse put such immense daylight between herself and her rivals, especially at the top level. Thrilling, multi-pronged finishes are often preferred for excitement, but there is something fittingly dazzling about what Brighterdaysahead achieved amid the fog at Christmas time.
Irritation – Fog
It was difficult not to be perturbed by a dense Winter Fog impediment, and not just because his second-placed finish to Brighterdaysahead suggests something was amiss with the form.
However, it was the winter fog which painted over Leopardstown, Aintree, Chepstow and more which ensured limited viewing of some of the top contests from Boxing Day onwards. Yes it is uncontrollable, but when there are 11 meetings on a single day, serious consideration should be given to flexibility of movement for such cards distracted by the weather.
The time period between Christmas and New Year exists in its own plane anyway, so let racing use it to always ensure racing can go ahead, regardless of frostbite, wind gusts or foggy fuzziness.
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Wed 11 Dec 2024Tip For The Weekend
This has been long, so I will keep this brief. Jipcot has a great chance of following up a recent success in the Lanzarote Hurdle on Saturday should Kempton go ahead. He looked to have improved immensely for wind surgery when winning at Newbury on Challow Hurdle day and an 8lb rise is only measured for such a victory. Soft ground will not unsettle him and there could easily be more to come on his best form.