WEDNESDAY at Cheltenham was overshadowed by the controversy concerning Declan Queally and Nico de Boinville, sadly taking some of the gloss off the day’s action.
It was a day to remember for the French, as horses bred in the country won five of the seven races. With a GB-bred stopping what was so nearly a Gallic clean sweep of the first six races, we headed into the concluding bumper with a very real possibility of a day at the Cheltenham Festival without an Irish-bred success. Quelle horreur! Thankfully, Noel Meade came to the rescue. Merci Noel.
Two notable take-outs from the second day’s sport were the fact that four of the winners were sired by horses who had enjoyed success on the opening afternoon, and two of that quartet of sires are true veterans, the 27-year-old duo of Great Pretender, a son of King’s Theatre (Sadler’s Wells), and Well Chosen (Sadler’s Wells). The latter ended the first half of the week’s racing as the interim leading sire, thanks to supplying a placed horse, Will The Wise, in addition to his Grade 1 winners.
I don’t know what Tom Meagher at Kedrah House Stud will charge for a cover by Well Chosen this year, but I imagine it will be a little less than the €10,000 it will cost to use Great Pretender at Haras de la Hetraie. It is worth noting that Great Pretender’s book of mares in the past three years have been 111, 57 and 43, while Well Chosen’s comparative numbers are 21, 17 and seven. Canny mare owners might well make a call to Tom and strike a deal.
Poignant bumper
Well Chosen sired the winner of the opener at the Festival, and The Mourne Rambler won a poignant Grade 1 Weatherbys Champion Bumper run in honour of the much-missed Sir Johnny Weatherby.
Bred by Christopher McKeever, five-year-old The Mourne Rambler was bought as a foal by Peter Nolan for €32,000 at Tattersalls Ireland, sold for €45,000 at the Goffs Arkle Sale to Kingsfield Stables, and repurchased privately by Nolan for Noel Meade.
The bumper winner’s dam Lobinstown Girl (Luso) was a €3,000 buy at the predecessor to the Goffs Arkle Sale, the Land Rover Sale, and she placed twice in nine starts for Meade.
The Co Meath trainer has had great success with the mare’s offspring, including Grade 1-placed She’s A Star (Well Chosen), Grade 2-placed Sixshooter (Well Chosen), and listed-placed hurdler Blue Mosque (Berkshire).
To make it a Meade takeover of the immediate family, he also trains She’s A Star’s son Colcannon (Berkshire – who stood at Kedrah House), and that Grade 2 bumper winner last year was placed behind Bambino Fever in the Grade 1 Champion Bumper at Punchestown.
A SIXTH Grade 1 chase win, and seventh in all, came the way of Il Etait Temps in the feature on Wednesday, the Champion Chase. It was a second win of the week for the former Burgage Stud sire Jukebox Jury, a son of Montjeu (Sadler’s Wells). Also a Grade 1 hurdle winner, Il Etait Temps’ family is truly outstanding.
Bred by Emmanuel Clayeuxa and Ecurie Couderc, Il Etait Temps is son of the three-time jumps winner Une Des Sources (Dom alco), and one of a pair of winners she is responsible for, along with a Grade 3-placed juvenile hurdler. The family has seen other winners at Cheltenham come from different branches, Envoi Allen (Muhtathir) being the outstanding performer. Let’s not forget the Champion Hurdle winner Espoir D’Allen (Voix Du Nord), while Eldorado Allen (Khalkevi) was runner-up in the Grade 1 Arkle Chase.
This was the final leg of a Grade 1 treble for Willie Mullins on day two of the meeting, and took his tally of wins at the meeting since Tourist Attraction started the sequence in 1995 to 117.
King rules
The day opened with the Grade 1 Turners Novices’ Hurdle, and did we see a future Champion Hurdle winner in the shape of King Rasko Grey (Galiway)? The 2023 Goffs Arkle Sale top lot at €250,000 is by the sire of Vauban, and Group 1 flat winners Sunway and Sealiway, and comes from a female line that is German in origin.
Bred by MM Stud in France, King Rasko Grey was sold as a weanling at Osarus for €18,000, before Tony Costello’s care and early rearing turned him into a sale-topper, bought by Harold Kirk and Mullins. Costello travelled to France during pandemic times to buy the then colt. King Rasko Grey is a first winner for his dam Imaginary Move (Wiener Walzer), and she is a daughter of the German listed winner Imagery (Monsun).
Also group-placed, Imagery has done well at stud, with four of her seven winners getting blacktype. They are the French and German listed winner Instigator (Nayef) who also won at that level over hurdles in Australia; Ange Pitou (Adlerflug) who is a listed winner over hurdles in France; Ismene (Tertullian), a listed Oaks trial winner in Germany, while Imi (Tertullian) got a blacktype placing in the Group 1 German Derby.
Galiway, a son of Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), has now got three Grade 1 jumps winners, compared to his two on the flat, and stands at Haras de Colleville for the fifth consecutive year at €30,000.
No Sadler’s Wells
Kitzbuhel (Cokoriko) was the only Grade 1 winner on day two with no Sadler’s Wells in his pedigree. The Mullins runner, in the colours of Marie and Joe Donnelly, won the Brown Advisory Chase to add to the Grade 1 Kauto Star Novices’ Chase at Christmas. The six-year-old was bred by Michele Juhen Cypres. He is the latest star for the leading French sire Cokoriko (Robin Des Champs), the 17-year-old standing this year at Haras de Cercy for €15,000.
Louis Kennedy of Mountain View Stud in December paid €50,000 for Kitzbuhel’s half-sister Je Garde (Kapgarde) at Goffs. She made two starts, placed once, and is full-sister to the Grade 1-placed hurdler Hors Piste (Kapgarde) and half-sister to the Grade 2-placed hurdler Itours Brun (Free Port Lux).
NICKY Henderson’s place as the second most successful Cheltenham Festival trainer is in no danger at present, and his third winner of the week came with Jingko Blue (Great Pretender) in Wednesday’s Grade 3 handicap hurdle. The seven-year-old, a £225,000 2023 Tattersalls Cheltenham Festival Sale graduate, purchased by Jerry McGrath, is a Grade 2 novice chase victor.
Bred by Jessica Rainer, Francois Kereczek and Jeremy Rainer, Jinkgo Blue won his only point-to-point for Rob James after being unsold at the Derby Sale for €48,000. James sold him five days later for the fourth best price at the sale. How apt that he should return to Cheltenham and win at the Festival. A day after Lossiemouth won for Great Pretender, the sire got his second.
Jinkgo Blue’s dam Vibraye (Saint Des Saints) raced five times for her breeder Baron de Bourgoing and placed on four occasions, twice each on the flat and over jumps. While most of the horses in the family have done well in France, back in the fourth remove is another Cheltenham hero, Azertyuiop (Baby Turk) who was successful in both the Grade 1 Champion Chase and Arkle Chase.
Grand Annual
In a driving finish to the Grand Annual Chase, Martator (Martaline) brought up another win for a French-bred. An online Auctav purchase for €160,000, he is now an eight-time winner, six times over fences for Venetia Williams, and has repaid his purchase price with British winnings of £300,000. A son of one of the best jump sires in French history, Martator is half-brother to Grade 2 hurdle winner Garde De Burge (Kapgarde), and they are the best of four winners out of Tornada (Ballingarry), twice successful in listed hurdle races at Auteuil.
Comments that Camelot (Montjeu) could end up as the leading sire at Cheltenham were humorously made after Final Orders won the Cross-Country Chase after a fine ride from the Wexford-born Conor Stone-Walsh, and became the sire’s second winner of the week.
Bred at Anthony Oppenheimer’s Hascombe & Valiant Stud – responsible recently for the UAE 2000 Guineas winner Title Role – Final Orders was a hoped-for classic winner.
Instead, the 90,000gns Tattersalls foal, 70,000gns breezer and 14,000gns horse in training graduate is now an 11-time winner, all but one over jumps, and his dam Trapeze (Pivotal) is a juvenile-winning full-sister to Leo who won the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes at two. Final Orders’ third dam was the classic winner On The House (Be My Guest).