“Just as quick as it started, the firing stopped. And a terrible silence hung over the valley”…
Yes, it’s the same quotation from the beginning of The Ballad of Michael Collins that appears in this spot this night every year. For the simple reason it best encapsulates the deflation of spirits that arrives with the conclusion of the Cheltenham Festival.
Where to begin? We’ll talk about Willie Mullins having more winners than all the UK trainers combined. About Gavin Cromwell becoming another Meath trainer to lift jump racing’s blue riband. About Cian Collins landing a first Festival success.
And about Gordon Elliott having to wait until the 28th and final race of the entire fixture for Wodhooh to get him on the board for another incarnation.
But, before any of it or any of them, it has to be about Mikie. And Charlotte. And Barry. And Marine. And Rachael. And Robert.
Because, as an understandably emotional Barry Connell said after Marine Nationale had done what his owner/trainer and late former jockey expected him to do in the Arkle Challenge Trophy Chase, “It’s very poignant, and very raw” while winning rider Sean Flanagan added” He (horse) had two jockeys helping him today, Michael (O’Sullivan) made him the horse he is”.
You’re right Sean, he had two jockeys with him. But also the collective will of everybody and anybody with a scintilla of interest in or knowledge of horse racing this side of Timbuktu.
However, even before the day had got to that point, the spirit of the tragic young Corkman and his partner Charlotte Giles flowed through the opening day of the 2025 Cheltenham Festival.
After all, in a moving illustration of a community coming together when one of their own hit troubled waters or worse, to their immense credit, race sponsors SkyBet consented to having the race re-named the Michael O’Sullivan Supreme Novice Hurdle.
And, for a brief moment, it appeared the most poignant of outcomes was about to manifest as Flanagan produced Connell’s William Munny swinging on the bit approaching the last. It didn’t quite work out, but consider that all the jockeys wore armbands with the Cork GAA crest thereon and it fairly well set the tone for the week.
Not to mention the fact that Charlie McCarthy, owner of race winner Kopak Des Bordes, is also a Corkman and also had a moving tale of his own to tell.
So to the big race on Day 1, the Champion Hurdle. The re-coronation of Constitution Hill? Really? As the late Frank McKeown who worked with luminaries of the game from this locality such as Bert Kerr and John Oxx Snr put it, you can be working with horses all of your life and they can still make an awful eejit out of you.
People in and around racing – owners, trainers, jockeys, and the racing press know this. Experienced, regular, dare one say, professional punters, know it too.
As distinct from the once a year, throw-a-dart-and-see-where-it-sticks, or ‘I love the name’ sort of flutter merchants. Who become overnight experts and instantly lambast the likes of Nico De Boinville (more about him later) or Paul Townend or Mark Walsh when the likes of Constitution Hill and State Man or Majborough got turned over.
A word to the frivolous talking through their pockets – horses are not machines and jockeys are human beings. Things don’t always go the way they are expected to. By horses, owners, jockeys or trainers. All of whose stake in matters carries much greater influence than that of any punter. Let alone the casuals. Remember that and you’ll be grand.
Not to mention, as if it needed re-inforcement now of all times, that, while having a flutter might be a hobby or a bit of fun for you, those partnering the animals you’re betting on are risking life and limb every time they get legged up for your entertainment.
Yet, for them, it is also what they do for a living. How they put food on their tables. So, you can imagine how it must have felt for Gordon Elliott. The Longwood handler having brought as many representatives to the four day Olympic games of horse racing as some trainers have in their entire yards.
Though perhaps in the greatest illustration of how Cheltenham takes no prisoners regardless of who you are, Gordon had to wait until the very last race of the entire Festival for Wodhooh to get him on the board for 2025.
All the while, his former farrier had the week of his training career thus far as nearly everything Gavin Cromwell threw at a target stuck. Most notably, of course, the blue riband of the entire sport.
As Inothewayurthinkin latched onto the front runners at the second last as if he had just joined in and skipped away from his contemporaries to put himself and his trainer into the history books.
Joining Stumptown on the board for the Danestown trainer who – lest it be forgotten, only had his first runner at the Festival in 2017. And, as well as the two winners, had a plethora of horses including Vanilier, Brides Hill,Robbies Rock, Thecompanysergeant, Sixandahalf and Midnight It Is run career bests on the biggest stage of them all.
A word, too, for two of the great stayers of the Irish training scene, Paul Nolan and Michael ‘Mouse’ Morris. I’ve been in Paul’s company on maybe a half dozen occasions and there’s just something uplifting and optimistic about the man.
So it was great to see him back among the winners on the biggest stage of all when his Daily Present was an eye catching, fast finishing winner of the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Handicap Chase.
Mouse, well what can we say about he of the mangled hair and permanent cigarette. Phrases like ‘Living Legend’ tend to be tossed around like chaff in the wind, but it fits perfectly with Michael Morris, aka Lord Kilanin.
Not only for his achievements as jockey and/or trainer but for the amount of good he has bestowed out of personal tragedy. Following the death of his son ‘Tiffer’ from Carbon Monoxide poisoning in Argentina ten years ago. Now, given all that the man from An Spideal has achieved in the sport, that he no longer has Gigginstown artillery at his disposal – for the track at least, I’m not sure about ‘Pointers’ – few would’ve argued if, well into his seventh decade, he was beginning to wind down his operation. But not a shade of it.
Thanks mainly to an infusion of bloodstock from Cork businessman Brian Acheson’s Robcour operation. Which included the admirable grey Gentlemansgame, Morris’ charge produced a career best to rattle home in third behind Cromwell’s new kingpin and the hat-trick seeking defending champ.
So to Rachael. Well, technically Rachael, Henry and Robcour, but, in this case, I think even the other two involved parties would cede full praise to the remarkable young woman doing the steering. Where does one start? Having seen the tragedy which befell Michael (O’Sullivan), his family, partner and, by extension, the entire racing world, not only among male jockeys but, to an even greater extent, the lady colleagues, the sense of risk in what they do for a living must have increased tenfold.
However, what many mightn’t have known, certainly in the early part of last week, was the personal tragedy Rachael and her family were also dealing with in the midst of what – for anybody with even a morsel of interest in horse racing – is the biggest sporting week of the year. That being the death of her young cousin Robert in Co Kilkenny.
To bring it back to what in fairness are racing trivialities comparative to most of what has been mentioned herein heretofore, after two days, neither Rachael or Henry (De Bromhead) had chalked up a winner. And then, to line up with the old tale about the buses, two of them landed shotgun to each other.
Both for Robcour. Air Of Entitlement in the 2m5 Novice Hurdle – who, it must be admitted at my own expense, was completely overlooked like Slade Steel in the Supreme Novices last season by yours truly. Mea Culpa. That was never going to be an issue with the second half of the Knockeen double.
I would put it to any man, woman or beast – if the latter could understand – that the transformation which De Bromhead and his team – for the trainer has been effusive in praising the role played by his assistant Davy Roche – have brought about in Bob Olinger as every bit as noteworthy as that cultivated by Paul Nicholls and his crew when converting Big Buck’s from Gold Cup hopeful to the best staying hurdler of his generation. Standing up to comparison with Baracouda or Inglis Drever or Flooring Porter or any other contemporary one cares to mention.
Thus, no matter what else one might never be able to predict about life – which in some cases is no harm – what can be said for certain is that Brian Acheson has the machinery to dominate the staying hurdle division for a long time to come between Teahupoo and Bob Olinger. How the other half live!
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