What a lovely Saturday afternoon, writes Tony Stafford. Sky Sports Racing – now on my Now TV sports package, if you please – had all three UK cards. Thus, there was a constant flow of high-class jumping from Newcastle, Doncaster and, above all, Newbury suggesting that all may not be quite so gloomy where our sport is concerned.
Alex Hammond, Mick Fitzgerald and Jamie Lynch provide a refreshing balance of experience, insight and regional accent and they were in their element, especially Mick, as his old boss Nicky Henderson was on one of his very good days. The former stable number one showed he keeps a keen, close acquaintanceship.
Basically, he knows where the Seven Barrows horses go to work at home or, at important times, away and even, no doubt, what they had for breakfast.
The Henderson highlight, of course, was super-sub Sir Gino, nimbly stepping in after his work with Constitution Hill at Newbury suggested he might have made up a chunk of the 23lb that officially separated them in the BHA handicap.
Lameness was the reason for the former (2023) Champion Hurdle winner’s absence from Saturday’s Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle. It could turn out in time that Henderson might not have needed to search so intently for a reason <lame excuse?> to explain the gallop’s outcome.
Saturday’s field seemed to contain only one horse capable of challenging the previously unbeaten Henderson four-year-old. That was Mullins’ superbly bred Mystical Power, result of a union between perennial (but deceased) champion flat-race stallion Galileo and close-to unbeatable hurdling mare Annie Power, one of the stars of Willie Mullins’ long career.
Mystical Power was never going in a race where a couple of outsiders made the pace. Nico de Boinville moved Sir Gino out to challenge entering the straight and when he asked him to extend, the gelding did so thrillingly, winning by an ever-widening eight lengths from five-time winner (from eight runs) Lump Sum. It was Nicky’s eighth victory in the race.
Sir Gino started out with an unexpected debut win in France and, once “lifted” from under Harold Kirk’s and Mullins’ noses, went unbeaten last season, missing the Triumph Hurdle, but sorting out the Triumph runner-up, Mullins’ Kargese, by almost four lengths at Aintree. Constitution Hill’s performances still stretch far into the distance where even the best of the rest is concerned, but Sir Gino could just be getting a good deal closer, and his stablemate clearly hasn’t been as easy to train of late.
Until I checked on Sunday morning, I had no idea of Willie Mullins’ age or when he started his training career. It was a shock to see he’s 68 years old and took out his first licence 36 years ago!
That still makes him a novice compared with the six-years-older Henderson, who began training ten years earlier. The pair have been at the top in their respective countries for decades and the most pugnacious of opponents at every Cheltenham Festival meeting since Mullins got into his stride.
Paul Nicholls began as a trainer three years after Mullins, but with the credibility from his time as a jockey when he won two consecutive runnings of the then Hennessy Gold Cup on Broadheath and Playschool in 1986/87 for David Barons. How he ever managed 10st 5lb to ride Broadheath I can’t fathom, but then, when Ned Sangster can ride in amateur riders’ races on the flat at under 10 stone, I suppose anything is possible! Don’t turn sideways Ned, I won’t be able to see you!
Nicholls didn’t take long showing he had gone through a thorough apprenticeship. Towards the end of the Martin Pipe superiority after the turn of the century, when Pipe won 15 titles, Nicholls got ever closer, finally ending that one-sided era with a first triumph on a memorable final day at Sandown in April 2006.
Over the next 17 years, he and Henderson dominated, albeit heavily in Nicholls’s favour, 14 to four, with legends like Kauto Star and Denman to fuel the lavish prizemoney that decides the title. Henderson had collected twice in the 1980’s, so he has six.
Then, last April, it became evident that Willie Mullins, not content with 17 consecutive championships at home, was intent on dislodging either Nicholls or Paul’s former assistant Dan Skelton, and he duly achieved it with something to spare.
The statistics around this top three – Henderson, Nicholls and Mullins – are collectively most impressive with only Skelton in the UK likely to beat the trio to the top spot. Skelton’s wonderful training complex near Alcester, was built and designed on father Nick’s business acumen and Olympic Gold medal riding skills over many years.
Both Dan and younger brother Harry, already a champion jump jockey and potentially going close to another title this season, had their initial racing experience in Nicholls yard, as did emerging trainer Harry Derham.
In Ireland, Gordon Elliott has withstood what many thought would be a career-ending faux-pas a few years ago to come back even bigger and stronger.
Elliott’s stats are remarkable. After Saturday’s racing, in the season from May, Gordon had run 232 individual horses in 633 races, winning 86 and accruing €1,822k. Mullins, with 78 fewer horses (154) and from under half the runs, has 65 wins for €1,326k.
Skelton meanwhile in the UK has gone off at a fast pace, returning to getting as many wins as possible at the “phoney” first half of the season (May to October) before the real stuff begins. His stats are not far short of Elliott’s. He has run 196 horses for 484 runs, 96 wins and £1,247k. Nicholls has 47 wins and £845k from 114 horses and 194 runs. Slow-starting Henderson has 29 wins and £496k from 84 horses and 128 runs.
Henderson was at Newbury on Saturday, saddling two winners, both making their seasonal comeback. Nicholls, too, was content to let his Coral (ex-Hennessy) Gold Cup contender Kandoo Kid go to Newbury without a previous run this autumn and his judgment and that of rider Harry Cobden proved correct as he won comfortably from the favourite, Nigel Twiston-Davies’ Broadway Boy. Here the inherent dangers of punditry came to the fore, one of the trio (Mr Lynch I believe) suggesting the Coral Gold Cup rarely goes to a horse first time out. It did this time.
This was a fourth training win in the race to go with those almost four decades ago riding successes. We all remember Denman’s duo – the only thing we might have forgotten was that they were respectively 17 and 15 years ago!
It’s not only Nicholls whose former assistants rise to a high level after taking their leave. Henderson saw Tom Symonds, a former joint assistant with Ben Pauling, enjoying a prestige win with Navajo Indy in the Gerry Feilden Hurdle. The runner-up there, the former Oliver Sherwood-trained mare Queens Gamble, now with Harry Derham along with her former handler, was a good second first time out for a year, and she is the one I would take from the entire Newbury card.
Talking of Pauling, while his Henrys Friend was only fifth in the big race, he would have been much closer I’m sure had he not punctuated his otherwise great jumping round with a shattering mistake halfway down the back straight second time around. He was also making his return to action and should not be missed next time.
The previous afternoon at Newbury, Pauling showed his hand with another young chaser who could be winning the Coral Gold Cup next year. Carrying Harry Redknapp’s colours, The Jukebox Man made an exhilarating first run over fences in the John Francome Novices Chase, sponsored by Corals. Ben brought him along carefully through his bumper and hurdles seasons and he is now ready to reveal his true potential as a chaser.
I mentioned above the numerical strength of Elliott and Mullins in Ireland. Gordon had 17 runners on the Saturday Fairyhouse card but it wasn’t until the day’s final race, the bumper, that he had a winner. Most punters would have been expecting Ma Jacks Hill, a €310k acquisition for Giggingstown House Stud to land 4/5 favouritism, but he was only third to Elliott’s other runner, William Butler, a 25/1 shot. I hope Sir Mark Prescott’s assistant noticed it running and had a fiver on it!
Talking of expensive buys, the Sir Alex Ferguson colours had their first airing on the Nicholls-trained €740k acquisition Coldwell Potter at Carlisle yesterday. He and Harry Cobden treated the crowd to an exhibition from the front and won easily. That Nicholls fellow keeps persuading the boys to fork out the money. He won’t get back on top otherwise.
- TS
