Monday Musings: A Bit of a Joke…

Windsor’s Fitzdares Fleur de Lys Chase on Sunday carried £165,000 in total prizemoney, writes Tony Stafford. As such it was on a par with the previous day’s Clarence House Chase at Ascot, the two events providing the top two features on three days of Berkshire’s Winter Millions, began on Friday at the Thames-side course.

I say on a par, but as only two completed the course at Ascot, it meant between them they collected £165k. In the old days, prizes for non-completions or short fields used to be shared out with the ones that did complete. There’s no such largesse nowadays.

The even-money favourite Protektorat, trained by Dan Skelton, won the race 12 months ago in a common canter, despite being penalised 8lb for his Grade 1 success in the 2024 Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham where Envoi Allen was the runner-up.

He followed that Windsor victory with a good second to Jonbon, four lengths behind Nicky Henderson’s horse at Aintree. If anyone doubted Jonbon’s worth, his repeat win in the Clarence House a day earlier would have reminded them of his honourable never-out-of-the-first-two career.

I know that steeplechases over two miles, six furlongs take plenty of jumping, but the fact that Protektorat started at even money and was available at odds against for a while in pre-race betting, must rank as the value bet, certainly of the meeting, and probably this season.

Why? Well, while winning the Fleur de Lys carrying the maximum penalty last year, he weirdly escaped one for the second running on the race. Top marks to the Skelton team for noticing the rules aberration.

Protektorat faced four opponents and while he now had bottom weight, Ben Pauling’s Handstands, the Twiston-Davies’ Matata and Olly Murphy’s Resplendent Grey all carried a penalty. I suggest the race conditions are a joke!

The key date, for what obscure reason, was September 30, 2024. A winner of a Grade 1 or Grade 2 chase after that date gets 8lb; one winning a Premier Handicap (as in the case of Resplendent Grey in the bet 365 Chase at Sandown last year, and Matata at Cheltenham on New Year’s Day this month), a Grade 3 or Listed gets 4lb.

Handstands was a star novice for Ben Pauling last season, winning a Grade 1 and a Grade 2. On official ratings on these terms he had a monstrous 19lb to find with the Skelton horse, so when Ben Jones sent him past the front-running favourite going to the fourth-last fence at the head of the straight, he looked to be putting himself right in the top flight of steeplechasers.

I love the Windsor chase course with its long run-in and, for once over a golden weekend for Jones, he probably made his move a little early. That gave Harry Skelton time to gather his willing horse and conjure a rally from that 11-year-old partner, such that he had regained the lead between the last two fences.

It was hard work all the way to the line, especially with Resplendent Grey bringing out the stamina that won him the Sandown three-and-a-half miler in the spring, but Protektorat kept going for a near four-length win with the Murphy horse a couple to the good over Handstands.

I don’t know who framed the Fleu de Lys conditions: it carries the official designation of a Class 2 contest, with no Graded status. The quality of this field (and last year’s) and the lavish prize money surely demand its promotion next time round.

I referred to Ben Jones’ superb week. He won on both his rides at Windsor on Friday, including on the Emma Lavelle-trained Bluey in the featured mares’ chase, before clicking on his first two rides at Ascot on Saturday when The Jukebox Kid showed he was on an upward curve, if not quite as steep as stablemate The Jukebox Man’s!

Then half an hour after the Fleur de Lys, Jones did it the other way around, pulling back several lengths from the last fence to win the 3m4f handicap chase on Neo King for the Evan Williams yard.

Not to be outdone, Harry Skelton responded in kind in the finale, a high-grade bumper, coming from off the pace to swamp his rivals for speed and win at 12/1. That made it a 67/1 treble on the day for the Skelton team and, more significantly, added another £125k to their spectacular tally.

I mentioned that Jonbon won the Clarence House Chase. But it needed a superequine effort from the horse to claw back the lead that the Skelton runner Thistle Ask had initiated from the start. Winner before Saturday of four in a row, all handicaps and the last three since being acquired for only £11k when he came up for sale last year upon the retirement from training of James Ewart, his mark had gone from 108 to 158 in that time.

Now he faces another upgrade as he was within three lengths of Jonbon at the line and as Nicky Henderson admitted afterwards, it was stamina that won him the day over this probably now insufficient trip of two miles.

Jonbon, extraordinarily in a four-horse race was allowed to start at 6/1. True, he had been easily beaten last time out in the Tingle Creek at Sandown by Saturday’s favourite, Willie Mullins’ Il Etait Temps, but that was the biggest price Jonbon has ever started, Il Etait Temps no doubt being regarded as invincible at 2/5 in the market.

Maybe it was Thistle Act’s bold jumping and sustained pace that troubled him, but Il Etait Temps never looked like getting to the leader and he came down heavily two from home. Happily, it seemed it was merely tiredness and nothing worse, but from 5/2 for the Queen Mother Champion Chase he is now out to 8/1. Willie has others to fill in for him, no doubt.

The £51k that Thistle Art earned his connections, added to yesterday’s haul, has Skelton rapidly approaching the £3 million mark for the season. It was after the last-day turnaround when the Mullins team swamped Dan at Sandown that either Willie or son Patrick stated they would be targeting many more ordinary UK race meetings in the upcoming season. With that in mind, Patrick was dispatched from Co Carlow to the far east of the country yesterday, to Fakenham, to ride a couple of “steering jobs”.

In a 2m4f maiden hurdle, Clay Pigeons, who had already come across to Catterick to win a bumper, started 4/11 but was no match for Olly Murphy’s King Jon Oliver, the 5/2 second favourite. Then 2/1 on shot Lultimatom, was rolled over by – you guessed it – the Skeltons’ 13/2 chance Eastern Fire, ridden by Tristan Durrell.

As at Windsor, the Skelton team bagged another treble, all ridden by Tristan. If you got all six of the Skelton winers in an accumulator, it works out (or so my computer says), at 21,114/1; but if you did have it you were lucky as 13/2  shot Miss Cynthia was a long way behind Princess Keri at the final flight of the day’s feature when that mare’s rider Ned Fox got unbalanced after the obstacle and came off.

Mullins senior did collect the two Grade 2 races at Thurles yesterday, Jade De Grugy (1/7) picked up €29k for a school round under Paul Townend, who added a second success on Appreciate It, the even-money favourite, in a race where his trainer had four of the five runners and took the first three places.

The fates of his two UK runners over the weekend coincided with, if not a seriously worrying period for the trainer, certainly one with more reverses than expected. Over the past two weeks, Mullins has sent out 18 winners, but an astonishing nine odds-on chances in that time have bit the dust.

Maybe Cheltenham 2026 might be less of a one-sided battle between the Irish and the home team. Everyone was vastly impressed by Nicky Henderson’s Haydock winner Old Park Star in the Rossington Main Novices’ Hurdle. He made all to win the Grade 2 by 18 lengths under Nico de Boinville in the style of, dare we suggest it, Constitution Hill. How does the old boy continue to find them?

- TS

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