ROLLING WITH THE PUNCHES
Elliott aims to be Festival knockout
ABOVE the tack room in Gordon Elliott’s busy Cullentra yard is a mural depicting the trainer in boxing garb and a winning post smashed in two.
Elliott’s mouth-guard is green, white and orange, while a nickname, ‘Big G’, is visible on the singlet.
Three weeks before the bell rings for Cheltenham, Elliott was bobbing and weaving at some press questions levelled at him yesterday, chiefly about Samcro.
But no one doubts for a moment the Meath trainer will land his punches over four fiercely competitive rounds of racing in the Cotswolds.
In 2017, he saddled six Festival winners; last year, he bagged eight. He talks about Willie Mullins setting a high bar, but Elliott has done that for himself, and he knows it.
‘Eight was unbelievable. The problem when you do these things is you have to try and beat them,’ he said.
‘Going over there everyone is trying, it’s the Olympics. If you came home with no winner, you’d be heartbroken. If you came home with one, it would be disappointing, but you can keep your head up.
‘I’m never happy with one winner, you know me,’ he added wryly.
Mostly, Elliott is businesslike and you know it is time to leave when he replies to questions by saying how ‘lucky’ he is ‘to have good horses and good owners.’
Maybe it was the imminent arrival of the BHA inspectors to his yard ‘to ‘go through veterinary stuff for Cheltenham’ that signalled the close of media matters.
Before that, Elliott ran through his huge team for Cheltenham - he has close to 50 runners, most of them owned by Gigginstown House.
It is headed by the best pound for pound horse in National Hunt training, Tiger Roll, the Katie Taylor and Kellie Harrington of racing respectively in Apple’s Jade and Shattered Love, and a potential heavyweight, Samcro.
Last Sunday at Navan, Tiger Roll did something very few Grand National winners manage– he won a race after Aintree. Like Cause Of Causes, another three-time Festival winner, he is Elliott’s stable favourite. And why not? A winner at all distances from two miles to four and a half, his versatility and durability is astonishing.
‘If his background was different, we might be thinking of going for the Stayers’ Hurdle but he’s going for the cross-country race.’
In contrast, Apple’s Jade has won just about everywhere bar the Festival. Last year, she was in season and Elliott’s team are tracking her ‘cycle’ carefully ahead of a Champion Hurdle tilt.
‘If she runs to the form she’s been running all year, she’ll run a big race in the Champion Hurdle,’ he said.
Shattered Love will need a career best in the Gold Cup but this division is ripe for a shock and a cut in the turf will suit. ‘She’s a good mare and she’s a chance of finishing in the first four or five but she’s not Don Cossack,’ cautioned Elliott, in reference to his classy 2016 Gold Cup winner.
In time, Samcro might be spoken off in the same breath as ‘The Don’ but a lung infection knocked him for six and Elliott is unsure if he’ll run in the Stayers Hurdle.
‘If he gets to Cheltenham, he does. If he doesn’t, whether it be Aintree or Punchestown, or we take the shoes off him and leave him to go chasing next year, there’s no decision made yet,’ he insisted.