POINTING THE WAY
Multi-million pound industry breeding Festival success
DO you want to own a Cheltenham Festival winner?
Silly question. But they don’t grow on trees. Where to find one?
A decade ago, France was the place to go – Kauto Star, Master Minded, Long Run and Big Buck’s showed top-class form across the Channel before becoming stars of our jumps scene.
Now, the point-to-point field is where it’s at.
Not English point-to-points – we’ll get a good pint of bitter in the beer tent, but are more likely to see a horse on the way down than the way up.
Gold Cup heroes Best Mate and Denman started their careers in Irish point-to-points, as did 2015 Champion Hurdler Faugheen.
“I love the English scene – I’m not slagging it off – but off the top of your head you can’t name me the last Cheltenham Festival winner that came from an English point-to-point,” says Tom Malone, the jump jockey now making it his business to purchase elite bloodstock.
“This year alone there are nine favourites at the Cheltenham Festival that are Irish point-to-point winners, and there are 14 races with an Irish point-to-pointer in the first three in the betting.
“There were 74 Grade 1s in England and Ireland last year, and 22% of the winners were Irish point-to-pointers.”
“You can’t get away from those stats.”
In his riding days – he rode the majority of his 70 winners for Martin Pipe – Malone (right), born and raised in Tullamore, Co Offaly, was known for his ability to talk the hind legs off a Gold Cup winner.
But there’s more to his line than blarney.
Every January, Malone returns to Ireland to inspect “250 to 300” horses.
He researches each pedigree and speaks to his network of trusted trainers to gauge expectations.
“If there are 12 runners in a point-to-point, I’d have spoken to the trainers of seven of them,” explains Malone.
“So I have a fair idea. ‘Wow, this is going to be a good race!’ Or, on another Sunday, ‘They’re not a good bunch.’
“Then you see the performance and the time.”
Native River (Gold Cup), Petit Mouchoir (Champion Hurdle), Neon Wolf (Neptune Investment Management Novices’ Hurdle), Carter McKay (Champion Bumper) and Cantlow (Cross Country Chase) are among the Irish graduates who will carry punters’ hopes this week.
Malone bought Native River – “he was less than six figures and he ticked all the boxes” – and Finian’s Oscar, successful in Sandown’s top-level Tolworth Hurdle for Colin Tizzard, but ruled out of the Festival by a last-minute setback.
Malone, sufficiently taken by Finian’s Oscar’s eight-length victory at Portrush, Co Antrim, last October to pay £250,000 on behalf of owner Alan Potts, remembers: “I knew two months before that horse ran how good he was – we were going to buy him if he bought what I thought he was capable of doing to the track.
“It was a truly run race from start to finish – a performance time that you couldn’t get away from. He was by a champion sire in Oscar and he’s a smashing horse. There was no guesswork.”
Tizzard hopes Finian’s Oscar will be back in action at Aintree in four weeks’ time.
Last month, Malone went to an all-time record £480,000 to secure Flemenshill 11 days after his point-to-point score at Oldtown, Co Meath.
“I should be shaking, spending that sort of money on a horse,” he admits, “and I haven’t one shaky bit of me.
“No four-year-old, standing nearly 17 hands in February, should be able to do what this horse did. And he did it on the bridle. I’ve never bought a nicer young horse.”
Like Finian’s Oscar, Flemenshill is in Potts’ colours and Tizzard’s care.
“We’re cantering him and getting him used to what we’re doing,” reveals the trainer.
“Well turn him out in novice hurdles in the autumn.”
Remember the name.