NO RICH PICKINGS

Why doesn’t Richard Johnson get more rides? He’s top class after all

MARCH 20

The protracted riding agonies of Sir AP McCoy were a feature of recent Cheltenham Festivals,but the sufferings of the multiple champion paled alongside those endured by Richard Johnson this year.

For all his discomforts, McCoy could always rely on a steady supply of fancied rides in the J P McManus silks, in both the handicaps and the Grade 1 races.

Johnson has been riding magnificently all season,yet he was without a ride in the week’s three most valuable and prestigious races.

This isn’t quite on a par with Lionel Messi being left on the substitute’s bench for a Champions League Final, but would be a tricky one to explain to an outsider how the rider who is overwhelmingly a first choice for so many on a day-to-day basis has to sit things out when the big money is down.

In total,Johnson had 18 rides across the four days and none finished closer than third. (One of two rides to make the places was If In Doubt, one of the unluckiest losers of the week in the Pertemps Final).

Seven of his rides failed to complete including, ironically enough, the three to start at the shortest prices (Garde La Victoire, 4-1 for the JLT Novices’ Chase, Balthazar King at 9-2 for the Cross Country Chase, and 7-2 shot Shantou Village, perhaps the most disappointing favourite of the week in the Albert Bartlett).

Four were fallers,leaving the championelect crocked by the end of proceedings, and unable to ride at Kempton Park the following afternoon.

The decision to re-route Vautour to the Ryanair Chase after the owner had spent weeks stating it would be the Gold Cup or nothing didn’t just put away ante-post punters, but also the many hundreds of racing fans who attended the Festival previews hoping to have their card marked rather than their number taken.

Did Dick Hern have it right when refusing point blank to talk to members of the Press and thus leaving it to pundits and punters to make up their own minds regarding the running plans of his leading horses?

Or Sir Henry Cecil, who would reportedly take his phone off the hook at the time when the calls were likely to come in?

Or Jenny Pitman, whose wrath could wither the well-being of even the most hardened of correspondents?

Is the time of trainers not better spent attending to matters in their yards rather than responding to the verbal requirements imposed on them in these twittering times?

The fact that many of them bear the whole thing patiently – and even on occasion tell us something we don’t already know– is a credit to the profession,even if the Vautour volte-face most certainly wasn’t.

Until recently,bookmakers would study the supposed Festival‘bankers’and allow themselves a knowing smile,being confident to a point of near-certainly that a significant number would be beaten. They won’t be smiling now. Of the 14 Grade 1 races run last week, seven were won by the favourite,one by a co-favourite and four by second favourites, including 5-1 shot Sprinter Sacre. (And the two remaining winners will not have been skinners, being the popular Blaklion and the five-timer seeking Unowhatimeanharry).

How long will it take to get back the £50-60million which reportedly flowed the punters’ way?

It isn’t just bookmakers who will be rethinking their approach to the Festival.

In the Racing Post Tom Segal owns up to being “slow to adapt to a different era of betting....old-fashioned punters like me will say stuff like ‘I would never back a horse at a short price at Cheltenham’ but we are missing the value....it doesn’t take many brain cells to find winners at Cheltenham,but if you are used to spending time and effort to find winners it’s really hard to do the obvious.”

Frankly, the only punters I know who think and act in this manner are to be found among the ranks of the newspaper and television tipsters,where there seems to be an unwritten assumption that the cleverest and most compelling selections are always those at bigger prices,including in the championship races which are seldom won by a horse to be found in the