IT’S FESTIVAL TIME AT CHELTENHAM
Champion jockey Richard Johnson is going for Gold again after a 17-year wait
IT IS World Book day and champion jockey Richard Johnson has two excited Harry Potters buzzing around his kitchen before they head off to school. Both Willow, eight, and Caspar, five, sport rather impressive Hogwarts outfits their father bought, not inexpensively he feels, in a local supermarket.
Caspar, with Harry’s trademark Voldemort-inflicted red scar drawn on forehead by mum Fiona, flourishes a replica plastic wand as three-year-old Percy demands dad’s attention. But if that plastic wand could conjure real-life spells, it is easy to guess what Johnson would wish for going into next week’s Cheltenham Festival: solid gold.
When Johnson rides Colin Tizzardtrained Native River i n the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Friday, he will have his best chance of winning for 17 years, since he partnered Looks Like Trouble, trained by his future father-in-law Noel Chance, to beat Florida Pearl by five lengths in 2000.
It was his one win in the race and Johnson smiles as he notes the success was ‘worryingly almost a generation ago’. Only Ruby Walsh among his riding rivals is still competing over jumps. At the time, it was a third Festival success for Johnson, now 39, and within three years he had collected two of the Festival’s other blue riband races, the 2002 Queen Mother Champion Chase on Flagship Uberalles and 2003 Champion Hurdle with Rooster Booster, both trained by long-time ally Philip Hobbs.
Looks Like Trouble, still sprightly and active at 25 years old, is living out his retirement at Johnson’s Herefordshire home but, since those glory days at the turn of the century, the biggest Festival prizes have been elusive for his rider.
Johnson’s haul of 20 Festival successes is still pretty impressive; only four men have ridden more. But rather like his great retired rival Sir Anthony McCoy, churning out winners on an industrial basis is no guarantee of Festival glory.
Johnson’s last two Festivals have been winless — his last success being Fingal Bay in the 2014 Pertemps Hurdle — and his 2016 haul was two third places.
Johnson said: ‘Our Festival record was the one thing me and AP could abuse each other about. We could not really moan to anyone else because we were riding probably twice as many winners.
‘At the time he was riding bundles of winners for JP McManus. It just shows no matter how many good horses you buy or how big the stable you ride for, you need a bit of luck as well.
‘I’d hope I’m realistic rather than optimistic or pessimistic. All you can do is make the horses you ride perform the best you can. I had it getting the ride on Looks Like Trouble. I had not ridden him before the Gold Cup but there was a fall-out between [previous jockey]
Norman Williamson and his owner. Flagship Uberalles came to Philip late in his career, while Rooster Booster was a good horse but a handicapper. He had won the County Hurdle the year before and you would never have believed he would win the Champion Hurdle the next season.
‘There are good horses who might run at Cheltenham in a race but only a few good enough to run in or win a championship race.’
Johnson is thinking of mounts such as Menorah, his 2010 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle winner, and Captain Chris, successful in the 2011 Arkle Chase. Both were top class and successful but a championship race at Cheltenham eluded them.
When he first rode Native River, guiding him to victory at Aintree’s Grand National meeting in April last year, Johnson was not left thinking ‘Gold Cup’. But wins in the Hennessy Gold Cup in November and, particularly, defying top weight in the Welsh National in December have changed his mind.
Native River’s Gold Cup odds have reduced throughout the season and last month, when injury ruled out Tizzard’s ante-post favourite Thistlecrack, the gelding was left disputing favouritism with another stablemate, Cue Card. Many see his stamina-laden performances — he was second in the four-mile National Hunt Chase at last year’s meeting — as being ideal for the Gold Cup challenge.
Johnson said: ‘The Gold Cup to me is the most important race of the season. To win it again would be a dream come true. This year is the first year for a long time I have had a serious chance and, the closer we get, it gets better and better.
‘Everyone says I suit him so maybe they were looking for someone not very intelligent to just keep shoving him along. I’ve ridden him four times and every time he has got better.
‘To win any Hennessy is a good run but then the way he jumped the last few fences in the Welsh National — you shouldn’t do that in soft ground under top weight. At the line, usually when you stop riding horses they stop to a walk within two strides. He was still full of energy.’
Johnson feels his biggest Gold Cup dangers will come from Cue Card and Willie Mullins-trained Djakadam, runner-up for the last two years.
Whatever happens next week, Johnson looks assured of a second title. He has ridden 157 winners, putting him 30 ahead of closest rival Brian Hughes.
He will find it tough to repeat last season’s 200 winners again and admits defending the title has been tougher than chasing it, increasing his admiration of McCoy, who he chased for 20 seasons.
‘If I hadn’t won the title last season, everyone would have thought I was a failure,’ said Johnson. ‘Now I feel I should be riding 200 winners a season. It seems almost harder now — you have got the title and you want to hold on to it.
‘This season has gone well but not as smoothly as the last one, which was phenomenal. February was a bit of a write-off and then I had a fall, hurting my shoulder, which I then hurt again, which meant six days off.
‘I’m not complaining. Now I think even more of AP to produce those performances for 20 years. Winning the championship was my aim when I was riding against him. Most people thought I was mad and that I’d never beat him.
‘It would have been nice to be champion while he was riding but, for me, it did not take away from last season’s first title.
‘Receiving the trophy on the last day of the season was the best day of my racing life. Everyone turned out. We’d had AP’s retirement the year before. I did not expect it to be quite so big for me.’
A second Gold Cup with Native River to go with his championships would certainly be worth the wait for Johnson.
Richard Johnson is sponsored by MS Amlin, specialists in bloodstock and equine insurance. Go to www.amlinplus.com