I let everyone down. That’s killing me more than anything else...
Moore’s pain after Festival win slips away
JOCKEY Jamie Moore said he was still ‘distraught’ yesterday after the cruel episode which saw him unseated from Goshen with the Triumph Hurdle in the bag on the last day of the Cheltenham Festival. The 5-2 favourite, trained by Moore’s father Gary, was 10 lengths clear and going easily when making a jolting mistake which unbalanced his rider.
Goshen’s exit handed victory to Willie Mullins-trained Burning Victory.
Slow-motion replays also showed Goshen’s hind hoof landing on top of his fore hoof (right). It was another momentum-affecting incident and one that could have caused the horse serious injury.
Moore said: ‘I’m pleased he didn’t strike into himself and seriously injure himself but, at the same time, I’m gutted I let everyone down.
‘My dad thinks the world of the horse. He mucks him out at half five every morning. I have let him down, the owners down and everyone at the yard down.
‘That is what is killing me more than anything because they all think so much of Goshen. There’s also everyone who backed the horse.
‘I looked at the big screen and genuinely thought Harry (Skelton on third-placed Allmankind) was closer to me than he was, so I have kept the revs up.
‘I didn’t think it was a drastically long stride but perhaps it was too long. I sat the first bit and genuinely thought: “I have got this”.
‘It was just when he propped when he got his feet caught up and, all of a sudden, I have gone again. He is fast and he was trapping.
Moore is one of the weighing room’s most popular jockeys. His one previous Cheltenham Festival win came on his father’s Sire De Grugy in the 2014 Queen Mother Champion Chase.
Moore, who was riding at Fontwell yesterday, added: ‘It has cut me in two, it really has. I am 35. I have only had one Cheltenham Festival winner as it is so I know how few and far between they are. ‘Goshen had obliterated them. I never thought I would get a horse as good as Sire De Grugy, but I galloped Goshen a couple of weeks ago and thought he was better than Sire.
‘He was going to prove that. He was still quickening. He wasn’t just going to jump the last and fold. He was going to go even further clear.’ Among those to comfort Moore in the immediate aftermath of the race was 20-time champion jockey Sir Anthony McCoy and Moore said he had been inundated with messages of support.
He added: ‘I swear I have had more messages from people for falling off than if I had won the race.
‘There are a lot of great people out there and I appreciate every single message I have had.’
I never thought I’d get a horse as good as Sire De Grugy. Goshen is even better than him