Imagine if the world’s best player had not gone off injured in the Euro 2024 final. Just imagine…
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Joe BloGGs
Rodri’s enforced absence from the second half of England’s latest summer heartbreak ensured Martin Zubimendi arrived to inflict 45 minutes of sheer teeth-clenching despair. Football and whataboutery go hand-in-hand, just like they do in so many sports, but racing counterfactuals do not go far beyond mid-race falls or Annie Power. Yep, her again.
At least fallers or unseaters were present for their affairs. I want to look back at some scenarios that appeared destined to happen, or were at least on the periphery of possibility, and take a journey of imagination. We daydream for hours on end, so why not do so together?
Here are five racing hypotheticals to make us all wonder, “what if?”
Red Rum Runs in his Sixth Grand National
Who was your favourite cult icon of the 1970s? Was it David Bowie, Marc Bolan, DCI Gene Hunt or Red Rum? If we narrow it down to the mid-70s, then Rummy is the only correct answer.
It is often cited that Red Rum jumped 150 Grand National fences without mishap, but it is more extraordinary that he faced 180 rivals in the five Nationals he dominated, and beat 178 of them. Yet, it is so often forgotten amongst his folklore that a sixth Grand National appearance was firmly in the offing until the 31st March 1978, when it was confirmed that he had not fully recovered from a hairline fracture the day before the 1978 Grand National.
The 13-year-old paraded like a spritely youngster ahead of kick-off and, as had been the case in both Nationals either side of Red Rum’s history-defining, featured a remarkably close finish between five different horses. That it was so tightly contested may well mean that an inconceivable fourth straight National success may have been in the offing for Red Rum. He looked frighteningly well after all.
Tiger Roll Runs in his Third Grand National
If we did not know it beforehand, we did from 2021 onwards: the O’Learys do not play ball with fairytales.
Then again, it was that pesky Coronavirus which derailed our modern Grand National romcom. Davy Russell and Tiger Roll were like Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson for two years until 16th March 2020, when COVID officially caused the postponement of that year’s National. For those of you who hate time capsules or staring existentially into your own being, that was five years ago.
His rating of 170 that year would have required a career and Grand National best, but then the British handicapper became the mouse to Ryanair’s cat. Despite dropping Tiger Roll 4lb in the handicap the following year, Michael and Eddie O’Leary refused to relent on their stance that the delicately built Tiger could not possibly shoulder such a burden. Instead, we were treated to the farce of him running in the Grade 1 Bowl at the Aintree meeting, in which the 11-year-old, past his potentially top tier best, completed in his own time and tailed off.
Then again, for all that Tiger Roll could have secured the first ever continuous hat-trick in the Grand National, the 2021 renewal was historic for its own reasons courtesy of Rachael Blackmore and Minella Times. Then again the O’Learys have enjoyed being party poopers.
And I wasn’t expecting any freebies on my next flight to Dublin anyway.
Vautour Runs in the 2016 Gold Cup
He absolutely, conclusively was never going to run anywhere other than in the Gold Cup. That was the end of the discussion. Until he ran in the Ryanair Chase instead.
Vautour had been agonisingly denied a King George triumph on the line in December 2015, as Cue Card rallied to the cause. However, unbroken and unbowed, Vautour was going to run in the 2016 Cheltenham Gold Cup, renewing acquaintances with Cue Card and Don Cossack, who had been a late casualty at Kempton.
That was, until an 11th hour change of heart. He was declared for the 2m5f Ryanair Chase instead, won it as if he had entered the race at halfway and left us all wondering why oh why he wasn’t running on the Friday. He loved Cheltenham, was galloping all the way to the top of the hill in the Ryanair, and should have been a Gold Cup horse.
The 2016 Gold Cup ended with a damp squib, Don Cossack ultimately left to stride up the hill alone after Cue Card’s tumble at the third last. A what might have been scenario for so many reasons.
Sprinter Sacre’s Heart Beats in Time
Given that he pulled up in the 2013 Desert Orchid Chase at Kempton due to his irregular heartbeat, Sprinter Sacre effectively missed 634 days of potential racing between his 1/9 victory in the Punchestown Champion Chase and his runner-up finish in the 2015 Clarence House Chase at Ascot.
This ensured he missed any racing at the age of eight and had not quite completed his rehabilitation as a nine-year-old. Seven of the 11 Queen Mother Champion Chase winners since Sprinter Sacre’s jaw-dropping 2013 victory have been aged eight or nine, contextualising the importance and potential of the seasons he missed.
He may have eventually returned to greatness despite the odds against him, claiming a second Champion Chase three years after his first in 2016, but those interim years provide an almighty chasm of alternate reality. No horse has got within a stone of Arkle and Flyingbolt on Timeform ratings, but a fit and healthy, eight-year-old Sprinter Sacre may well have eaten further into that deficit.
Frankel in the Arc
This may always have been folly to believe, but as late as August 2012, there remained a distinct possibility, at least to us outsiders, that Frankel would conclude his career in the Arc.
There are no certainties in life etc. etc. but we can be honest with our hindsight: he would have won the 2012 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. He was so utterly and relentlessly clear of his talented contemporaries, that there would have been no issue bar bad luck that could have stopped him at Longchamp, even as he attempted 1m4f for the first and only time.
Nobody could begrudge Sir Henry Cecil taking the marginally easier option and protecting Frankel’s peerless unbeaten record of 14. Yet, fans of Sea The Stars can always claim that their champion won the lot.
And this year…
No Sir Gino in the Arkle will surely rob us of a more competitive race early on Cheltenham Tuesday, while Fact To File may dodge stablemate Galopin Des Champs in search of Ryanair glory instead. A portal that is open, and one which may emerge.
Enough of the daydreaming for now. Vautour can win as many Gold Cups as he likes in the stratosphere.
GG Jumps Journal – Do Nicky Henderson’s Runners Really Miss the Cheltenham Festival More Often?
Sir Gino might be the unluckiest jumps horse in training. But he is not alone among big name Cheltenham Festival absentees in recent seasons. No Fascinations & Irritations Firstly though, it’s been a sad enough week for the racing world without my gauche fascinations and irritations to comment on it. Instead, I’ll simply encourage anyone…
Wed 12 Feb 2025Fascinations & Irritations
There’ll be a lot of these over the next couple of weeks.
Fascination – Massive Winning Margins
Surrey Belle won the 1.35 at Newcastle on Saturday by 57 lengths. For those who take winning margins purely on face value, she is still 66/1 for the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle at the 2025 Cheltenham Festival. Remarkably the third, beaten 63 lengths, also has a Cheltenham entry in the Fred Winter.
In recent memory, it is difficult to recall too many horses winning by a greater margin than 57 lengths, although Surrey Belle’s triumph by that far probably fails to preclude Bristol De Mai’s own 57-length thrashing of the 2017 Betfair Chase field. That De Mai the grey did that as a six-year-old in Grade 1 company remains the outstanding “massive winning margin” achievement.
However, Supreme second favourite Salvator Mundi, about whom I bemoaned as an irritation in this column in the past, can at least lay claim to having won by even further. His Tipperary maiden success last May, at odds of 1/12 no less, was earned by 62 lengths, although it is possible that no horse will ever top Gaelic Warrior’s own maiden glory.
The enigmatic Arkle winner was also a ½ shot for a Tramore maiden hurdle in December 2022, and won by an almost unassailable 86 lengths. The race to record a 100-length victory is on.
Irritations – Kopeck De Mee
Look, if you want to back him for Cheltenham, I wouldn’t dream of stopping you. I suppose it is fitting having just mentioned Gaelic Warrior, that I feel faced with a similar dilemma to when that horse contested the Fred Winter in 2022 on his first start for Willie Mullins.
Kopeck De Mee will be doing likewise at the Festival having been purchased by JP McManus and sent straight to Closutton’s borders from France. He has been given a rating of 136 and goodness knows how much he could have up his sleeve.
However, in terms of the glorious form study which goes into the Cheltenham Festival for fans like myself, it diminishes the process. I cannot possibly hope to weigh up his achievements relative to his rivals, so he may just go and win. I can let him do so at short prices, but I wish the puzzle was not as simple as “does the new Mullins horse have three stone in hand”?
GG Jumps Journal – My Favourite Cheltenham Statistics
I love specific statistics. So here’s some of the Cheltenham Festival’s best. Joe BloGGs Other sports love to bombard you with stats. You can find out the percentage of baseline points won of your favourite tennis players, which niche record Manchester United have broken for all the wrong reasons lately, and there are numbers in…
Wed 19 Feb 2025Tip for the Weekend
We are going to take the simplest route to glory on Saturday and trust the Dublin Racing Festival.Vischio bolted clear in the closing stages of the mares’ handicap hurdle at the meeting on her first start for Emmet Mullins. Her trainer is seeking a £100,000 bonus for winning both at Kelso this weekend, and at Cheltenham, and Vischio could still have plenty in hand even with her mark up a stone for the Morebattle Hurdle (3.30) on Saturday. Back her shrewd handler to get phase one of the bonus plan underway.