The uphill finish at Cheltenham is rightly famous for abrupt reversals of fortune as leaders tire and their pursuers begin to chase them down, but even at Prestbury Park there have been few comebacks to match the on-off-on-again performance of See The World in the concluding National Hunt Flat race at Wincanton on Thursday.
Ridden by Aidan Coleman, See The World was in the lead and travelling well as the field turned for home but then started to hang so badly to his left that he almost stopped to a walk. “He’s running off the track, he’s got issues and that is the end of that,” David Fitzgerald, commentating on the race for Racing UK, said as Coleman’s mount apparently threw away any chance of victory, adding: “[Coleman’s] trying to pull See The World up.”
The jockey, however, managed to get See The World balanced and, though he was at least 15 lengths adrift of the new leader, Lincoln County, with less than a quarter of a mile to run, he set off in pursuit. With a furlong to go, it was clear that he was gaining ground rapidly, and See The World finished so strongly that he flew past Lincoln County close to the line to win by four and a half lengths. “This would be incredible if he’s going to get there and he’s going to sweep on by,” Fitzgerald said. “I don’t believe what we’ve seen.”
See The World’s erratic display caused mayhem in the in-running market on the Betfair betting exchange, where a total of £75 ended up riding on the winner at the maximum price of 999-1 and several much smaller sums were matched at prices including 659-1, 519-1 and 399-1.
“He just started hanging and I don’t know why,” Coleman said afterwards. “I had my stick in my right hand as I was going in and out of the wings down the back for the best ground and, coming to the bend, he just started to hang and I didn’t have time to pull my stick through. When I got him back in he was very professional but for a furlong, he just lost his head.”
The unlikely success of See The World completed a double on the card for Coleman, who recorded a much more straightforward success in the opening race aboard the 8-11 favourite Otago Trail.
The extent of Willie Mullins’domination of Irish jumps racing was laid bare in the entries for the Cheltenham Festival’s novice hurdle events on Thursday, with Ireland’s champion trainer supplying the majority of the country’s 44 entries for the Neptune Investment Management Novice Hurdle and almost half of the 38 Irish-trained contenders for the Supreme Novice Hurdle.
In all Mullins has 29 horses with one or more entries in the four Grade One events, including four in the Triumph Hurdle, which is restricted to four-year-olds. His total of 18 possible contenders for the Supreme Novice Hurdle is 13 more than any other trainer in Britain or Ireland can muster, while he has also entered 24 horses for the Neptune, in which Nicky Henderson, with nine, is second in terms of numbers.
Mullins was the top trainer at the four-day Festival in March in both 2013 and 2014 and the steady increase in the strength of his annual challenge is reflected in his current price of 2-9 to complete a hat-trick. Mullins was the 13-8 second-favourite –behind Henderson at 8-13 – at the start of the 2013 Festival but was odds-on at 4-9 at the beginning of the week last season. He trained five Festival winners in 2013 and three last season.
Mullins’s Festival challenge looks particularly strong on the opening day, and he is currently responsible for the ante-post favourite in all five of the card’s non-handicap events. He expects to run Un De Sceaux, the odds-on favourite, in the Arkle Trophy, and Faugheen, a 5-4 chance, in the Champion Hurdle, and if Douvan, who is a 9-4 chance at this stage, opens the meeting with victory in the Supreme Novice Hurdle, it will unleash panic among off-course bookmakers facing the possibility of a Mullins five-timer. Three or four winners for the stable on the opening day would also place Henderson’s record-breaking total of seven successes in 2012 under threat.
Vercingetorix, the runner-up behind Just A Way in the Dubai Duty Free at Meydan last March, made an impressive start to his 2015 campaign with an easy victory in the Group Two Al Rashidiya on the Dubai Carnival card at Meydan on Thursday.
True Story, a Derby contender for the Godolphin operation last season, was the favourite for the race at 11-10, but the 6-4 chance Vercingetorix, a Group One winner at the track last season, cruised alongside him in the straight and then quickened clear for a two-length success.
“It’s nice to see him win like this and I think he’s still got a lot to come,” Mike de Kock, Vercingetorix’s trainer, said. “I think he’ll improve a lot. His aim has got to be the Duty Free [since renamed the Dubai Turf]. Last year he ran the race of his life to get beaten by an unbelievable horse.”
Christophe Soumillon, Vercingetorix’s jockey, was completing a Group Two double following an easy victory on Alain de Royer-Dupre’s Cladocera in the Cape Verdi earlier on the card.
