CHELTENHAM IS DOMINATED by Gordon Elliott and Willie Mullins nowadays.
It is hard to credit that Mullins used to average roughly two winners every three years not so long ago down Cotswolds way; in this year’s renewal, Mullins is odds-on for top trainer, Elliott as short as 15/8.
At a preview Saturday evening in Ballinasloe, Co Galway trainer Paul Gilligan was in the audience and it was pointed out that he has had a Cheltenham winner in the shape of Berties Dream, the 2010 Albert Bartlett winner who had been competing off a mark of 90 earlier that season.
A trainer of so few winners in Ireland to enjoy Festival success seems almost fanciful at this stage – but it can still be done. There are some spirited underdogs taking the boat over with more than a few pints to motivate them.
Presenting Percy
(Gold Cup, Friday)
Okay, maybe you think last year’s Gold Cup favourite is a weird selection here but he’s trained by Pat Kelly, who has not had a winner since the same horse won a hurdle race at Gowran, the guts of 14 months ago.
He will be the eccentric Kelly’s only runner at Cheltenham and he goes there with form of the past 12 months of 8353. While last year he had no chase runs at all before the Gold Cup, this season he has been kept exclusively over fences.
Pat Kelly is closing in on nearly 100 successive runners without a winner but then this is Pat Kelly, a man who refuses to talk to the press most of the time and who got officials at his local Galway track to turn their fences the wrong way around last year to give ‘Percy’ a prep. It was not enough, but this is the man Davy Russell often describes as “a genius”, even if he is hardly a genial genius.
Owner Philip Reynolds said: “Percy is in great form actually, exactly where you’d want him to be a week out. All the hard stuff is done. He’ll do light work over the weekend and that’ll be it. He’s been keeping the head down, prepping away at home quietly this year.
“Pat is delighted with where he is at. Roll on the Gold Cup. I am just hoping to God the phone doesn’t ring.
“You’d prefer to see Pat with a winner but it’s not as if he has a big string. A lot of the horses I have with him are young and needed time. Outside of that he doesn’t have many more.
“Is he worried about stable form? He is not. I haven’t thought Percy ran like a horse out of form this season.
“If I was talking to you this time last year, is he any less happy, no is the answer. People can read into that any way they want. I am inclined to forgive him last year. Pat is very happy with him, that’s all I can say.”
Reynolds and his wife will enjoy a 30th wedding anniversary at Cheltenham next week. “I doubt Pat will attend but he’s inclined to have a few beers on the Friday,” Reynolds added.
Relegate
(Pertemps Final, Wednesday)
Colm Murphy enjoyed feature-race Cheltenham glory with Brave Inca and Big Zeb back in the day. Having quit training due to the financial pressures of the game during the recession, he’s made an unexpected return, rather akin to that of Paul Scholes, and Relegate — ridden by Paul Townend — is fascinating in the Pertempts, having been really eye-catching in a qualifier at Leopardstown in February.
In contrast to Canardier, she left Willie Mullins since winning the Cheltenham Bumper two years ago. She is now owned by Paul McKeon. Murphy’s last winner at the track was at Ballinrobe in August 2016. This one might be a little more celebrated.
“Paul was the only reason I came back training. I’ve a business arrangement with him, training and then selling lots of young horses: everything for sale. I rode a winner for him probably over 20 years ago in a point-to-point. It’s a business venture.
“Am I enjoying it? It’s grand. I suppose I am. I don’t have to go into the car to go to work every day. We’ve about 30 riding out and most of them will go pointing.
“The plan with Relegate is to put her in foal after this season. If she wins a big race it’s as good as a colt foal. She has a chance. She was great value at 16/1 or 20/1. Is she value now? Everything has to go right for her. You need an awful lot of luck on the day too. She seems good, we’re happy with her. Course form adds up to a bit.”
Murphy was about a year and a half working for the Turf Club; one felt he was happy to leave the office experience. “I was at the December Sale at Cheltenham, little did I think I’d be back here that soon.
Santa Rossa
(Mares’ Novice Hurdle, Thursday)
This Jeremy filly battered two very good sorts in a bumper last year in Bigbadandbeautiful and Jeremys Flame. Whilst she was only third on her seasonal/hurdling debut at Fairyhouse, she looked raw and it was a tough task taking on quite smart geldings in Exit Poll and Jon Snow.
“She works [on Wednesday] morning,” said Ratoath-based trainer Dermot McLoughlin. “I’ll speak to the owner then.
“I think the race is going to cut up. She was only getting going after the race at Fairyhouse and she ran a bit green; she ran all over the place at the second-last.
“It was the rider’s first time riding her in public and 100 yards after the line she was nearly in front. When she won at Leopardstown that day she just took off in the straight. She’s a good filly.”
McLoughlin went quite close to his first Festival winner last year with Canardier in the Coral Cup but in a rather regrettable twist he is quite sweet on the horse 12 months on but for someone else, the owner having decided to take him away to be trained by Willie Mullins
Se Mo Laoch
(Kim Muir, Thursday)
Trainer Brian McMahon, who finds himself by the Clare-Galway border village of Beagh, is from a famous hurling family. Indeed, on the day his cousin Seanie secured the senior medal, Brian netted the only goal of the game in the minor decider as the Banner’s minors beat Galway.
McMahon is a talented operator, cajoling a victory out of the 14-year-old Seskinane at Navan recently. He trains a handful of horses and has a live Kim Muir candidate in Se Mo Laoch. He might also run Powersbomb in the Grand Annual – not bad for a man who spends most of his day working as a biochemist and thinking even more about the Coronavirus than your average Cheltenham-bound trainer.
McMahon, who unusually works his horses in the evening (he hasn’t time earlier), said recently: “People might say you’re tilting at windmills going over there. Would you not find far handier races to have a go at? But when you’re in the stable yard at Cheltenham and the roar goes up from the grandstand, it sends a shiver down your spine, it’s akin to being nearly in Croke Park, that roar. It’s very hard to get a horse good enough to go there and I think when you have, it’s worth it to even just have a small chance.
The Jam Man
(Stayers’ Hurdle, Thursday)
Of all the optimistic tasks facing steeds next week, trying to beat Paisley Park is right up there, and that is not even considering that The Jam Man has come through the handicap route.
Ronan McNally has had his run-ins with the British stewards, claiming two summers ago that he began to feel “like a criminal” as he was interviewed over riding instructions and the vastly-improved form of his Southwell winner The Jam Man.
Back then, the then six-year-old was backed from prices as big as 20/1 overnight into 9/4 favourite and duly rewarded his backers by putting a string of well-beaten, unplaced efforts behind him with a seven-length victory in the Jigsaw Sports Branding Novices’ Handicap Chase.
It turned out he had a little in hand and, such has been the stayer’s improvement over hurdles, he is being aimed at taking on the seemingly unbeatable Paisley Park in Thursday’s Stayers’ Hurdle.
“My only concern is his two last bits of work have been below-par but on the way back from Leopardstown yesterday we called into the chyropracter and a few wee issues came to light,” says County Armagh-based McNally, 39.
“We’ll decide Saturday but hopefully we will have him right then. It’s amazing to have a runner there and we’re hardly going to beat Paisley Park but we are not going over there just to have a runner.
“The British handicapper has him too high for handicaps so we’ll take our chance in the Grade 1 and our rating is that of an improver; some of the others in the race have probably hit their ceiling.
“Everyone aspires to have a runner at Cheltenham. We’ve small numbers but that’s through choice: we concentrate on what we have.”
A notably shrewd operator in a racing backwater, McNally believes he may be able to book Davy Russell for The Jam Man.
In his most recent race he beat everything at Leopardstown bar the remarkable Treacysenniscorthy, but that one’s trainer Robert Widger has opted to skip Cheltenham and go to Navan for a novices’ handicap chase on Saturday week – likely something to look forward to if Cheltenham is a punishing week for Irish punters!