Tag Archive for: Cleeve Hurdle

Monday Musings: Trials and Tribulations

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For all last week, owners, trainers and punters were hoping that Cheltenham’s richly endowed and numerically enhanced nine-race card would go ahead, writes Tony Stafford. It did, although it was a close-run thing as the weather only chose to relent the night before.

It might seem churlish to suggest it, but probably one or two trainers (maybe more), their horses’ owners and many of the racegoers that filled the stands, might in retrospect be wishing it hadn’t.

There was £605,000 to be carved up and the big guns were out in force, none bigger than Willie Mullins, who had been celebrating reaching 4,000 career wins earlier that weekend.

His Energumene, owned by Brighton FC chairman and fearless punter Tony Bloom, was expecting to sweep up another fat cheque for winning the Clarence House Chase. The Grade 1 event was added to the card after Ascot’s cancellation as the frost extended its second embrace of winter tentacles the previous Saturday.

With only five to beat and with the most obvious of them, Edwardstone, having bailed out early in his previous race when unseating Tom Cannon at Kempton, it seemed very unlikely that Energumene would not be enhancing his already formidable Rules record of 10-1-1 from a dozen career runs.

The 2022 Queen Mother Champion Chaser, beaten on debut in a bumper on his first run for Mullins in early November 2019, had since gone unscathed until his sole defeat over jumps in the corresponding race to Saturday’s, in its proper home at Ascot a year and a week earlier.

Energumene had led that four-horse affair from the outset but could not hold off the forensically timed challenge by Nico de Boinville on Shishkin. The biggest disappointment for me of the entire Cheltenham Festival 2022 was Shishkin’s apparently inexplicable failure to run his race as Energumene gained his revenge in style.

Shishkin, the favourite that day as he had been in all except one of his races before Ascot last year, simply didn’t go a yard, pulling up.

He has raced only once since, finishing a tired third to Edwardstone in the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown in early December and much has been made of his non-appearance in the list of entries for the Queen Mother Champion Chase this year, although a supplementary can be made if circumstances change.

Saturday’s market chose to forget Edwardstone’s subsequent lapse at Kempton, preferring to point to his Arkle (for novices) success at last year’s Cheltenham Festival. For most though, while this had the appearance of a match race even though half a dozen pitched up, it looked rather one-sided.

Now though the pair are inseparable in the market for this year’s Queen Mother at around 2/1 each. Which of them won on Saturday? Well, neither. In that eventuality, one or both must have failed to finish for one reason or another? No, both completed, Edwardstone coming to take the lead on the run-in and then being outstayed and headed close home while Energumene ran a listless race in third, six-and-a-half lengths behind.

What could possibly have beaten them? The spoiler of their private battle was Editeur Du Gite, a 14/1 shot trained by Gary Moore, that had been supplemented for the race following his taking advantage of Edwardstone’s exit to win the Desert Orchid Chase and £57k on the second day of Kempton’s Christmas meeting.

There, he set off ahead under non-claiming 3lb claimer Niall Houlihan, and with everyone expecting him to come back, he kept stretching the lead in that Grade 2 contest, winning by 13 lengths from the Skeltons’ Nube Negra.

Grade 2 races are one thing; Grade 1’s against a Willie Mullins champion are quite another. When Houlihan again stepped away in front on Saturday – in a way stealing Energumene’s frequent thunder - again nobody took much notice.

The lead wasn’t too excessive as they came down the hill with the race heating up and the main contenders still in touch, but suddenly the favourite wasn’t moving like a winner. The same wasn’t true though of Edwardstone, and after they jumped the last with the Alan King horse in full flow, the outcome seemed to be a 1.01 Betfair certainty.

Edwardstone duly went past his rival after the last fence, but could not shake him off and Editeur Du Gite battled back to get up close home with his rider never resorting to the whip. Editeur Du Gite has now won six of his 16 chases, three of them around Cheltenham in five attempts. He’s down to 5/1 for the big race, but the market may have over-reacted to that one run.

Alan King seemed happy enough at the outcome and even Mullins was sanguine, but then you can afford to be when you’ve already trained 4,000 winners. Even Mark Johnston can only point to a hundred or so more than 5,000!

The next setback for two more big fancies for the Cheltenham Festival came in the three-mile Cotswold Chase when Dan Skelton’s Protektorat, so upwardly mobile over the past year, and the 2022 Grand National winner Noble Yeats, were expected to dominate.

Instead, it was a pair of Northern chasers prepared by female trainers that took the first two places. For much of the race Ahoy Senor was prominent along with the ever-popular Frodon and Bryony Frost, but then in mid-race he seemed to lose interest and dropped into midfield.

As he marked time, the Ruth Jefferson eight-year-old Sounds Russian swept round on the outside and went for home. Protektorat still looked an obvious threat in second coming down the hill but Noble Yeats had looked sluggish all the way round and was still some way back. Protektorat coud only go on from there at one pace and, as they turned for home, Ahoy Senor and Derek Fox rallied and went on to a hard-fought success. Sounds Russian was a creditable runner-up while Noble Yeats motored up the hill to get within a length of the second at the line.

Emmet Mullins and the Waley-Cohen family, trainer and owners of the Grand National hero will hope when he comes back to Cheltenham in March, they will go a better gallop and there will be more of them – mostly from Ireland no doubt – to make it a truer test. My preference for a bet on him, even though he will have a massive weight, is in the Grand National. Only an eight-year-old, I believe he’s a clone of Red Rum and Tiger Roll and could win at least three of them.

Okay, a couple of short ones had been turned over, but surely now the punters could look forward to the Cleeve Hurdle and a fourth successive victory in the three-mile test for the wonderful Paisley Park. Now an 11-year-old, Andrew Gemmell’s star was still sprightly enough to win the Long Walk Hurdle, another major jumps race salvaged from Ascot, this at Kempton on Boxing Day.

The received wisdom is that Kempton is an easy track and one where you would not expect Paisley Park’s stamina to be as effective as elsewhere, but as the others died at Kempton, he just kept galloping and won easily.

Now on a track he does clearly enjoy, with a Stayers’ Hurdle to go with his trio of Cleeve’s, surely he would make it four. In Dashel Drasher, he had an inveterate pacemaker to ensure a good gallop and that 10-year-old was joined in his role by the upgraded handicapper Botox Has.

As they grouped up going down the hill, Paisley Park was in touch having raced more fluently than usual in the early stages of the race, but Dashel Drasher, showing plenty of dash, quickly looked to have them cooked. And then came an unexpected challenger and not Paisley Park. It was French six-year-old, Gold Tweet, equally adept at hurdles and chases in France, but never yet over three miles, who sprinted up the hill under Johnny Charron to give Gabriel Leenders an unexpected training success at 14/1.

Charron was having his first ride in the UK, but he is a star turn in France where he won the Grand Steeple Chase in 2022. Leenders says he may now be tempted to get the owners to supplement Gold Tweet for the Stayers’ Hurdle but said: “It’s expensive and we’re not rich,” seeming to forget that Saturday’s race carried a first prize of almost £40,000 and owners, trainer and jockey will cop most of that.

It’s nice that sometimes, pre-conceived ideas are confounded. We too easily take the established order as permanent. In racing it is permanent, until they go to post again and as all punters know, any horse can be beaten and at the same time massive-priced animals can win, especially in 2023!  What a refreshing day to see a few fresh faces picking up the big pots!

- TS

Monday Musings: Playing the Long (Distance) Game

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Sometimes the story exceeds its components: the myth overcomes reality, writes Tony Stafford. For instance, how many Stayers Hurdles has the now ten-year-old Paisley Park won in his 20-race, ten-win hurdles career? Two, no three one’s mind wants to say. We’ve seen Andrew Gemmell, his owner, celebrate so many times. Sorry memory – and that went for me too just now until I checked – it’s just the one.

Yes, that day almost three years ago now when the Emma Lavelle-trained gelding sailed up the Cheltenham hill under Aidan Coleman clear of Sam Spinner and the rest to create a magical afternoon also charmed by victory on Frodon under Bryony Frost.

The owner, blind from birth but able to build quite a stable of horses having spent a successful career working in local government, has moved on notably also as a leading shareholder among the Barbary Lions in the champion Alan King-trained Flat-race stayer Trueshan. Andrew has enjoyed many wonderful days but Saturday’s third victory for Paisley Park in the Grade 1 Cleeve Hurdle at Cheltenham was very different as he was unable to be present.

At the time Paisley Park came up the hill to tumultuous cheers from the packed stands, his owner was in London Bridge Hospital recovering from surgery on a heart valve. He was intent on getting the surgery out of the way so he can be at the Festival.

As to the Stayers Hurdle, in 2020, sent off at 4-6 Paisley Park was only seventh behind Lisnagar Oscar – a well beaten third on Saturday in receipt of 6lb. Last year, again favourite, albeit at a more conservative 9-4, he was third, closest at the line behind the all-the-way, indeed runaway, Irish six-year-old Flooring Porter.

Coming into Saturday, the auguries for Paisley Park were far from bright. He now has a 12lb lower handicap mark – a relatively modest 157 – than after that Stayers Hurdle triumph in 2019. He had been third three times in succession in lead-up races at Wetherby, Newbury and Ascot, latterly in the Long Walk Hurdle, a Grade 1 race he had previously won, around five lengths behind Champ.

Re-opposing on identical terms, the last expectation was that he would revive old memories and many people were talking up the re-directed chaser Champ as the likeliest Stayers Hurdle winner, the Irish excepted and in some cases included. Indeed, such had been the impression created at Ascot by the J P McManus horse that the Irish were temporarily forgotten especially when Klassical Dream’s much-anticipated midweek trial for the Festival ended in a weak-finishing fourth.

Now, in the manner of racing and the best tradition of wishful thinking – I’m up there wishing with them all, too – we’re projecting a nice win in a five-runner race onto success in a 15-runner championship event.

“Look at all that ground he lost when turning around as the other quartet set off”, they say. Well, try that tactic on the big day and see where it gets you if Flooring Porter goes hell for leather again. It’s hoping to turn a potential deal-breaker into a positive. Saturday’s field was thin with only two of the five-horse field both in-form (Lisnagar Oscar certainly was not) and proven at the trip.

Paisley Park remains a wonderful stayer and his victory allowed all the outpourings of emotion that are commonly ceded to jump racing’s longest-serving heroes. We should take it as one more very welcome reminder of his talent rather that expect him to match or improve on it in six weeks’ time.  For his owner, just imagine how agonising it must be having to hear rather than see it happening. A remarkable man!

Earlier on the same Cheltenham card, we saw a very likely Festival winner in the shape of the Gordon Elliott-trained Pied Piper. The way this four-year-old by New Approach was followed vainly up the hill by his lesser rivals suggests his breeder, HM The Queen, was far-sighted in naming him.

Trained by the Gosdens, an easy win off 89 at Leicester in heavy ground on his last run before Tatts Horses In Training sale brought a final mark of 96 and a sale price of 225,000gns. I wonder whether Charlie Longsdon ever suggested to the powers that be that the owner-breeder might enjoy jumping him herself. Money talks, it seems, even in places maybe you’d think it would not!

If he shows up for the Triumph on the Friday of the Festival he will obviously take all the beating, such was the style of the win. Gordon Elliott also has unbeaten-in-three Fil Dor and the usual maybe we’ll go for the Supreme chat entered the equation briefly. You win the Supreme with a four-year-old, so what? Win the Triumph and if two have to go for it, needs must.

It’s not the same thing exactly, but I remember a few years back when Refinement was proving herself a top-class mare in long-distance hurdles, I asked Michael Tabor whether he would breed from her.

His answer: “How bloody old would I need to be before she has a runner?”. A home-bred foaled in 1999, Refinement won 13 of 33 races and more than £360k. Already the mother of four winners -  West Coast Time (2012), Meticulous (2014) and Risk Factor (2015) - all won in the blue and orange silks, but her most exciting prospect is a horse foaled when she was 18 years old.

That horse, Walking On Air, is trained by Nicky Henderson and is the first of the quartet to be sired by Walk In The Park, one of the star jumping stallions among the Coolmore NH team. If ever there was continuity of ownership and production, Walking On Air is it.

Walk In The Park, trained by John Hammond, was a home-bred of Tabor’s Irish and French Derby winner Montjeu, also trained by Hammond, an Englishman based in France who retired in the last couple of years.

Walk In The Park was runner-up in Motivator’s 2005 Derby as a big outsider and started his stud career in France standing at only €1,500. He immediately showed his propensity to produce winners and he was hastily finessed into the Coolmore nursery. Nobody – apart from anyone asking to send their mare – has ever been publicly aware of his fee. Betcha it’s a fair few Euros now!

But what a pedigree, and the way the Nicky Henderson-trained Walking On Air bolted up at Newbury on hurdles debut recently – in a similar manner to Pied Piper on Saturday – may finally make MT fully satisfied that his long-term and slightly unwilling project was worthwhile.

This column often descends into ageist talk and this week’s prime candidate for inclusion is one who made the century before his death last week. That worthy was Dick Duchossois, owner of Arlington Park racecourse in Chicago and founder of its Arlington Million.

I had one enjoyable evening at his posh estate outside the centre of Chicago when there to watch the race in the 1990’s. Arriving with festivities in full swing, I looked around for people I knew and recognised Michael Dickinson, by this time training in the US. Michael was holding forth to a table of admiring fans. As I approached, he called the table to order and said: “Meet Tony Stafford, a journalist from England. He taught me everything I know about handicapping!” As well as talking to me every night when he was still a jockey and returning back home after his sauna sessions, he was on to Colin Russell and Walter Glynn all the time, too. I never claimed a monopoly on the information, it was just me lucky enough to be there.

Michael and Joan Wakefield were at Newcastle racecourse the other night, obviously checking up on the well-being of the Tapeta surface he invented. He was chatting to Jim Goldie and Joanna Mason outside the weighing room when my pal Wilf Storey and daughter Stella came out with the colours bag after Joanna rode his horse.

Jim asked Michael if he knew Wilf, adding he’s the oldest trainer around. Michael said he did but Wilf corrected Goldie saying Joanna’s grand-father (Mick Easterby) is the oldest and Dai Burchill (to retire after a winner later in the week) was also older than him. Wilf said Michael looks as young as ever. He will be 72 on Thursday if you can believe that!

Talking of trainers packing up, it’s a great shame that Mick Quinn has called it a day after his big owner Kenny Bruce ended their relationship. Mick seemed to suggest that Bruce, a partner with his brother in Purple Bricks, who are now calling themselves in their advertising the biggest estate agency in the UK, might return some time in the future. Presumably when he can better afford it!

Mick trained a few horses for Raymond Tooth including Stanhope, a home-bred sprinter who won races before being sold to Ireland where he continued to do well. When he decided to hand in his licence, he gifted his two horses to the Northern Racing College.

One of them and the last to win him a prize was Great Hall, for his second in a Huntingdon hurdle race as an 11-year-old in October last year. A son of Halling, Great Hall was named on the way back from Manton to London as Ray and I were driven back by Steve Gilbey after Ray bought him from Brian Meehan.

He was a smart middle-distance horse who ran in the St Leger and won eight flat races and one hurdle.  He will be a wonderful schoolmaster. Mick’s colleagues on Talk Sport will be happy to welcome him back as he has more availability for punditry and commentaries, and he also looks forward to resuming his entertaining after dinner speaking.

A very nice family man, Mick Quinn is one of the most down-to-earth and cheerful of people. If he feels he didn’t get full reward for the 25 years of effort, generally with modest horses, often like with Great Hall in their declining days, he has helped make a day at the races very enjoyable for anyone he ever encountered.

- TS