Before the first of the eight races at Cheltenham on Saturday, the afternoon promised to deliver on its Trials Day billing from start to finish, with serious contenders for festival glory in March scattered throughout the card. By the end, the main lesson concerned the vagaries of chance, after a serious injury to Sir Gino, and then a long delay to the final race after a hole was discovered in the turf, close to the final flight on the hurdles course.
Trainers, jockeys and officials inspected the course before agreeing that conditions were safe to continue, with the runners rerouted around the problem. By the time Kripticjim and Taurus Bay eventually crossed the line almost as one, the sun had set and the photo-finish image was too murky to determine the result. Instead, the stewards resorted to the video footage to declare Kripticjim the winner by a short head.
The evidence of recent seasons, even at a time when Irish-trained runners have enjoyed overwhelming dominance at the festival, suggests that at least one of the winners on Saturday will follow up in March. Ma Shantou, who started the season in a handicap, is certainly a live contender for the Stayers’ Hurdle after his win in the Cleeve Hurdle, while Jordans Cross, Maestro Conti, Spillane’s Tower and The New Lion, also staked significant claims for punters’ consideration.
When they would ideally have been digesting a wealth of fresh festival clues, punters and racegoers were instead fretting about Sir Gino, and questioning whether the last race should have taken place at all. It will, of course, seem like a distant memory when the traditional Cheltenham roar marks the start of the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle on 10 March, but it was an inauspicious final pre-festival day at the track all the same.
Was it the right decision to allow the final race to go ahead? That is one of those questions that is easily answered from behind a keyboard and, more often than not, a cloak of anonymity on social media, but much harder to weigh up in the moment, as Jon Pullin, Cheltenham’s clerk of the course, was required to do.
Pullin was advised by a group of senior riders – among them the reigning champion jockey, Sean Bowen – as well as leading trainers including Nicky Henderson, Ben Pauling and Olly Murphy. All agreed it was safe to continue – although Henderson scratched the likely favourite for the race, Act Of Innocence – and Pullin, well aware of the importance of the race as a festival trial, was also satisfied that there was just one hole to worry about.
It was a close run thing but, after a swift reconfiguration of the track, they got it done and the connections of the horses involved will head to the festival having had their prep race of choice.
Had it been up to me, I would have erred very much on the side of caution and wrapped up proceedings after the seventh, due to the fear that there might be other holes in the track that had gone unnoticed.
But I would not be a clerk of the course for any money and nor do I spend many hours each week observing and nurturing the track at Cheltenham. Pullin does and he drew on his experience and then backed his judgment that the hole was an isolated issue. With the obvious exception of the photo-finish shenanigans, the race duly went into the form book as planned.
Newcastle 12.45 Aristelle 1.20 Le Beau Madrik 1.50 Spadestep 2.25 Dillarchie 3.00 Just Call Me Lucy 3.35 If Not For Dylan 4.10 Snow Dragon
Chepstow 1.00 Atlantic Power 1.30 Misterdoc 2.02 High Tea 2.37 Stencil 3.12 Charisma Cat 3.47 Fat Faced Columbo 4.22 Westbrooke Boy
Wolverhampton 4.28 Homme De Fer 5.00 Bandello 5.30 Horwich 6.00 Midnight Call (nap) 6.30 Daaris (nb) 7.00 Calabrian Soldato 7.30 Rajinoora 8.00 Son Of Astar 8.30 Shalaa Asker
Yet it was still an unfortunate postscript to a day which had already seen The New Lion win the International Hurdle in near-silence, as the crowd remained stunned by the pulling-up of Sir Gino three out.
Sir Gino went into Saturday’s race as British jumping’s brightest hope for the festival and with his star still on the rise. His sudden departure from the stage, for this season at least and, quite possibly, for good, leaves the home team without a favourite in any of the four feature events at Cheltenham in March, even before the Irish stage their familiar parade of collective might at this weekend’s Dublin Racing Festival.
Despite the sad absence of Sir Gino, Henderson still has two Grade One favourites on the festival’s opening day card in March in Lulamba, 7-4 for the Arkle Trophy, and Old Park Star, 5-2 for the opening Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.
The warm second-favourites for both races – Willie Mullins’s Kopek Des Bordes and Gordon Elliott’s El Cairos respectively – are among the likely runners at Leopardstown this weekend and after a somewhat unnerving Trials Day at Cheltenham, it is over to the Irish to show their festival hand. For the smattering of British trainers with an ante-post favourite, it could well be a case of read ’em and weep.
