Gallant Goshen can write the ultimate comeback story
▶ Unluckiest loser last year set to atone for rider Jamie Moore ▶ Roller-coaster 12 months for jockey can end on fitting high
There are a number of scenarios which could emerge from today’s Unibet Champion Hurdle at this strangest of Festivals.the crowds whose presence last year triggered such controversy as the country teetered on the brink of the Covid-19 crisis may be absent, but there will be roars rattling living rooms and offices up and down the land if the mare Honeysuckle helps Rachael Blackmore become the race’s first female winner.
If the reigning champion Epatante manages to put an ordinary run at Christmas behind her and triumphs for a second time, she would be providing Nicky Henderson and owner JP Mcmanus with their ninth and 10th winners of the race, respectively.
The form of last year’s Champion Hurdle was questioned at the time but when Epatante won the Fighting Fifth on her first start this season, she looked every inch the champion, toying with Sceau Royal.
But, though nothing came to light, her effort at Christmas raised those questions again. There is not much chaff in this year’s race and she will need to be on her A game.
Were the grey Silver Streak, who benefited from a change of tactics when making all to beat Epatante by 6½ lengths at Kempton, to win, it would evoke memories of the great Persian War, the last Welsh-trained winner. However, though third and sixth in the race before, he has not won at Cheltenham in five starts and is likely to have competition in the lead carriage from Not So Sleepy.
If Sharjah, who looks the pick of the Willie Mullins trio – although James Du Berlais is an unknown quantity having his first start outside France – wins then thoughts might turn to regular rider Patrick Mullins sitting at home watching because amateurs are not allowed to ride at this year’s meeting.
But I believe tomorrow’s headlines will be screaming “Redemption for Goshen” – the unluckiest loser at last year’s Festival – and Jamie Moore. He was 10 lengths up in the Triumph Hurdle when he did something I have never seen a horse do before – he clipped his own heel landing over the last and pitched his jockey, one hand on the trophy, one on the reins, out of the side door.
Five-year-olds do not have a great record in the race – Espoir d’allen in 2019 was the first to win it since Katchit, a Triumph Hurdle winner, in 2008 – and for much of the intervening year Goshen has been absent without leave, both on the Flat and over hurdles.
But, having caused trainer Gary Moore no end of sleepless nights and frustration, he stormed back into contention with a 22-length win in the Kingwell Hurdle at Wincanton last month. That day he took a mile to warm up and today he will get no such luxury. But he was slick through the last half of the race, the trajectory of his jumping lowered, and he powered away to put up the best hurdling performance this side of the Irish Sea this season.
Moore’s gelding, by the Derby winner Authorized, is a strong traveller and there will doubtless not be much let-up in the pace today. In the Irish Champion at Leopardstown, Honeysuckle and Blackmore kicked on from what would be the equivalent of the top of the hill and, though giving Henry de Bromhead’s unbeaten mare 7lb will be no easy task, Goshen has it within him to come out best.
Jamie Moore, 36, has also had a roller-coaster 12 months. At the Festival a year ago, his wife, Lucie, found a lump for which she has been successfully treated for breast cancer. He broke his back at Fontwell in August and initially feared the worst when he had pins and needles in his hands and feet before pitching up at the same hospital in Brighton as his wife.
The jockey, who says he still gets online abuse about last year’s Triumph, has only one Festival winner to his name, Sire Du Grugy’s emotional victory in the 2014 Champion Chase when the weighing room emptied to celebrate the popular rider’s return to the winner’s enclosure. No one would begrudge him another visit to that hallowed area.
Henderson, who had to withdraw Altior from his team yesterday, has his best shot of the meeting in the Sporting Life Arkle Trophy with Shishkin, who is ready to slip into Altior’s shoes. He looks bombproof.
Allmankind used to wear his heart on his sleeve over hurdles and though he is much more tractable over fences, Harry Skelton will no doubt be keen to try to get Shishkin “at it” and see if he can extract a mistake or two from Henderson’s athletic seven-year-old.
Willie Mullins, overwhelming favourite to be leading trainer this week, will be short odds to start the fixture with a seventh Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle courtesy of Appreciate It. I would not totally dismiss his second-string Blue Lord, who has a bit to find with Appreciate It, but will be helped by the hill.
The Betfair Hurdle winner Soaring Glory could give the two Jonjo O’neills, father and son, a chance of their first Festival winner together, but the rain that fell on the course on Sunday night will not have improved his chances. It will, however, help the Harry Fry-trained Metier, who made light work of tough conditions in the Tolworth Hurdle.
Denise Foster, the caretakermanager, has her first Cheltenham runner from Gordon Elliott’s Cullentra House when Milan Native goes for the Ultima Handicap Chase, but Kim Bailey’s novice Happygolucky looks the one there.
It feels like there are more oddson shots and “bankers” over the four days of this Festival than ever before. But the biggest certainty of all is that they will not all win.
Cheltenham has never been predictable and, strange though this one will be, it is unlikely to start becoming so now.