TIGER TOPS ROLL OF HONOUR
5 stunning wins that capped a magical year for the best of Ireland’s racing fraternity in 2018
THE racing pulse throbbed to a healthy rhythm in 2018, nowhere more so than the Cheltenham Festival where Irishtrained horses scooped a record-breaking 17 victories.
Gordon Elliott (eight wins) edged out Willie Mullins (seven) for the top trainer’s award only to run into a Mullins blitzkrieg at Punchestown, where a staggering 18 winners ensured a 12th trainer’s title for the Closutton colossus.
Aintree National winner Davy Russell doubled up as leading jockey at Cheltenham with the champion jockey’s title in Ireland, although the ride of the season came from Derek O’Connor on Edwulf in the Irish Gold Cup with a thrilling last-to-first win.
On the Flat, Aidan O’Brien picked off the English 2,000 Guineas with Saxon Warrior, one of 14 Group One wins, but was mugged by sons Joseph and Donnacha as Latrobe claimed the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby.
Jessica Harrington lost a rising star over jumps in Our Duke but enjoyed stunning success on the Flat with the flying grey, Alpha Centauri. The winner of four Group Ones was recognised as the world’s outstanding three-year-old filly.
As Katie Walsh and Nina Carberry hung up their boots, Rachael Blackmore’s career graph continued to soar with three Festival winners at Punchestown, followed by a flying start to the 2018-19 season which sees her challenging Paul Townend for champion jockey honours.
Galloping into deep mid-winter, jump racing could do with more rain, especially for the second Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown in February, which proved a hit and is here to stay.
As a plus, Ruby Walsh is back after lengthy injury setbacks. Walsh, Russell and Barry Geraghty will turn 40 in 2019 and continue to set the standard in the saddle.
1 GRAND NATIONAL, AINTREE APRIL 14
The oldest jockey, Davy Russell, and the smallest horse, Tiger Roll, combined to win the world’s greatest race. As angles go, the Aintree marathon delivered once again.
That Russell finally won the Grand National in the silks of the owner, Michael O’Leary, who sacked him as retained jockey over a cup of tea, said everything about the blunt-nosed professionalism that permeates the sport.
There was no rancour from Russell over his removal; no barring order by O’Leary. Winner: Davy Russell celebrates at Aintree last April
Bit by bit, race by race, Russell began to get the leg up on O’Leary horses. If he was around, and was needed, he got the nod.
After the split, Tiger Roll had been one of his first big-race winners, in the 2014 Triumph Hurdle.
Following Punchestown that year, the ‘little rat of a thing’ as O’Leary called his horse, then had eight different jockeys over 27 races before the Russell reunion last April.
From running two miles at speed over hurdles to covering four and a half miles over the unique Aintree fences, Tiger Roll had to learn a whole new way of racing.
Along the way, he crammed 13 races in to seven months in 2016. Like Russell, he proved himself to be adaptable and durable.
Tiger Roll seemed likely to win at Aintree by a dozen
lengths when drawing clear after the last fence following a trouble-free passage.
But then, the needle hit red and as ‘Tiger’ rolled, the shadow of Pleasant Company and David Mullins loomed as quick as that of the winning post. Suddenly, there was nothing between them.
At the line, Russell was sure he’d ‘got done’ but when he heard his horse’s number called out as the winner, ‘every bit of misfortune I ever had just drained out of my body.’
In racing, like all sports, it’s always good to get on a Roll.
2 IRISH DERBY, CURRAGH JUNE 30
It was hot and sticky at the Curragh on Irish Derby day, a time for ice creams, cold beers and shades. Amid it all, Joseph O’Brien was one cool dude. Rather than fret over Latrobe, his first runner in the Derby, he passed time as an analyst in the RTÉ booth alongside Robert Hall and Ted Walsh. As he said later: ‘Sure it took my mind off it.’ This thrilling victory was straight out of the Boy’s Own annual as the O’Brien siblings, trainer Joseph and teenage jockey Donnacha, chinned their father, Aidan, to win Ireland’s most illustrious Flat race. O’Brien senior has won the Curragh classic 12 times and he fired a cluster of equine darts at the Curragh bull as he sought to land his 13th triumph.
Over two and a half minutes of a gripping duel in the sun, he fell a few inches short, as his horses finished second, third, fourth, and fifth — all eclipsed by the young master of Piltown, who retired from his own glittering riding career at just 22.
Victory for Joseph O’Brien with his first Irish Derby runner came after he had bagged the Melbourne Cup with Rekindling and the Irish Gold Cup with Edwulf.
These are the sort of elite races which trainers devote a career to winning, and most fall short. By the tender age of 25, O’Brien has already achieved extraordinary things as a fledgling trainer.
To take on the might of his father’s Ballydoyle battalions, as well as challenging Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott over jumps, indicates the scope of his ambitions, and his training skills.
Give him the right ammunition, as the likes of owners JP McManus and Lloyd Williams are doing, and he will hit his target. This O’Brien is no ordinary Joe.
3 STAYERS’ HURDLE, PUNCHESTOWN APRIL 26
Most racing folk have hides as tough as old wallets.
But even those with the flintiest of hearts were moved by the sight of Faugheen’s pillar-to-post success in the Stayers’ Hurdle at
Punchestown.
At 10 years old, ‘The Machine’ coughed back into gear to win by a staggering 12 lengths. That he was sent off at 11/2, his highest career price, indicated the many doubters.
Trainer Willie Mullins was among them as he acknowledged Faugheen was entering the Last Chance Saloon on the evidence of his sub-standard work at home only days earlier.
‘He fooled me all year,’ said Mullins, who had seen Faugheen pull up at Leopardstown before being put in his place in the Irish Champion Hurdle by Supasundae and the Champion Hurdle by Buveur D’Air.
Father Time and injuries had robbed Faugheen of his blistering pace and as some questioned his appetite for battle, Mullins rolled the dice one final time, over three miles, rather than two.
Over the longer trip and on the rolling Kildare turf he loves, Faugheen was ‘smartly away and made all’ under David Mullins, as the Racing Post reported in its race-reads.
Smart performers such as Penhill, Shaneshill and Jezki were among those toiling in his slipstream, while colourful owner Rich Ricci shook his head and admitted: ‘You can’t make it up.’
A dual winner at Cheltenham in 2015 (Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle) and 2016 (Champion Hurdle), Faugheen is being aimed at a final Festival hurrah in the Stayers’ Hurdle.
No 10-year old, never mind an 11year-old, has ever won this marathon test over three miles.
If Faugheen takes flight again in March, as he did in Punchestown last April, there won’t be a dry eye in the house.
4 RSA CHASE, CHELTENHAM MARCH 14
When the press pack swarms into the winner’s enclosure at Cheltenham, there is always a threepronged attack on the owner, trainer and jockey of the moment.
Yet, where Pat Kelly is concerned, things are not so straightforward.
First up, many in the media haven’t a clue what Kelly looks like, while those hacks familiar with Kelly from the Irish circuit, know better than to expect a Gettysburg Address after races.
Kelly doesn’t play the media game, which only makes him all the more intriguing. For this mystery man of the Festival has cracked the Cheltenham code, saddling winners at the last three Festivals.
In March, he executed a training master class as Presenting Percy, sharpened up over hurdles, bagged the RSA Chase under Davy Russell by seven lengths from Monalee.
Predictably, Kelly waved away all cameras and tape recorders afterwards. He was so reluctant to engage with the post-race fripperies that it seemed at one point as if he would skip the presentation — at least that way, people got to put a face on the name.
Kelly is content to allow his horses do the talking for him, as well as Russell and owner Philip Reynolds, son of Albert, who refer to the Craughwell-based trainer as a genius.
He must be, to take on the might of Mullins, Elliott, Henderson and Nicholls with such a tiny armoury. Mall Dini has a win and a second place at the Festival; Presenting Percy is two wins from two visits.
Could he make it three from three in the Gold Cup in March? The National Hunt landscape appears open for a new champion and Presenting Percy has the right age — eight — and profile for the Gold Cup.
Should that occur in March, publicity-shy Kelly would be obliged by Festival criteria to attend a press conference. It doesn’t mean he would turn up. The quiet man and Galway have always gone hand in hand.
5 SISTERS-IN-ARMS, PUNCHESTOWN APRIL 27 & 28
Inside 24 hours, two top jockeys rode off into the sunset of retirement on the back of a Punchestown Festival winner.
For both Katie Walsh and Nina Carberry, it was the perfect way to go, especially as they got the legup for a final time from trainers who gave them more opportunities than most, Willie Mullins and Enda Bolger.
Sisters-in-law through marriage, they only told each other about their intentions while walking the track on the Tuesday evening, at which point they stopped for a hug and a wee tear.
The crack amateurs, born five months apart in 1984, contributed hugely to National Hunt racing with an Irish Grand National apiece on their CV as well as Cheltenham Festival winners.
They famously fought out a thrilling finish to the 2010 National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham where Katie on Poker De Sivola edged out Nina on Becauseicouldntsee.
They also share the record for the most rides, six apiece, by a woman in the Grand National at Aintree and between them completed the marathon eight times.
In 2012, Katie finished a close third on Dad Ted’s Seabass, the best finish to date by a woman rider. The tributes were heartfelt with Ruby Walsh hailing his sister’s strengths.
‘Katie’s as hard as nails, took every opportunity she was given, punched well above her weight. There were plenty of days she finished ahead of me.’
Enda Bolger, who gave Carberry the leg up for her final winner, Josie’s Orders, was asked whether he gave her any pre-race instructions. ‘I didn’t have to. She’s a Carberry,’ he said.
Walsh was adamant she ‘wanted to go out on her terms’ and not have people saying: ‘Jesus, when is she going to hang up her boots?’ while Carberry observed ‘this was our time’ to leave the stage.
Katie and Nina. Nina and Katie. Two of a rare kind.