PRESENTING Percy had them stacked rows deep as he paraded at Gowran Park on Theystes Day, January 24th this year before the John Mulhern Galmoy Hurdle, a race he won last year before Cheltenham glory.

Coming into the race with a 316-day absence since his last run, and win, in the RSA Chase at the 2018 Cheltenham Festival, the favourite for this year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup looked race-fit and primed as he was led around by his groom Kim Scott.

Last year’s first and second for the 2019 Gold Cup, Native River and Might Bite, had struggled to find form over Christmas and the chaser off-stage had become the talking horse for the championship race at Cheltenham.

The ground at the Kilkenny track had come up soft, the ground connections had been waiting for, in an unusually dry winter, and the opposition included previous Cheltenham winners. At last conditions had come right to give the Pat Kelly-trained eight-year-old a proper test in a strong Grade 2.

INJURY RISK

Last season Presenting Percy competed in a three-mile hurdle, a three-mile, five-furlong handicap chase and a two-mile, four-furlong chase on his preferred soft ground. However, despite the fact that Pat Kelly’s charge had won his first Cheltenham Festival race, the Pertemps Final over hurdles in 2017 on good ground, the inference was that connections were wary of any risk of injury or possible setback on the challenging, quick winter ground as they targeted the Gold Cup.

Cheered onto the track by an enthusiastic Gowran crowd, Presenting Percy delivered.

With a confident ride from Davy Russell, the Sir Percy eight-year-old tackled the hurdles with accuracy, was steered wide to the better ground coming into the straight, found deeper reserves as opponents came to challenge and raced to the line with ears pricked to win by one and a quarter lengths with plenty in hand.

For owner Philip Reynolds it was a fantastic relief after nights of very little sleep. Son of former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, the man from Co Longford, general manager of the family business, the internationally trading pet food supplier C & D Foods in Longford, has been in the precarious business of owning horses for a long time.

Talking a few days later by ‘phone, he described his heart “as being all over the place” as he and Pat Kelly and all connections had been “very, very patient” since Presenting Percy had been brought back in last August.

“It was a super run,” said Reynolds. “He was reaching for the jumps, it was almost a carbon copy of last year, a very good test. Great fun.”

After all the years of owning horses with some success and some painful losses, Reynolds reached what he then thought was his nirvana on St Patrick’s Day 2016 as Pat Kelly produced Mall Dini in the form of his life to claim the Pertemps Handicap Hurdle at Cheltenham.

That first win at the HQ of National Hunt racing was a surprise and Reynolds was ecstatic, saying: “And if it’s my last, I don’t care now, I have achieved what I wanted to do.”

COLOURS

But the Reynolds’ green and white colours of the GAA club of Killoe parish were carried to victory again in the same race next year by another winning purchase from Tom Costello junior - Presenting Percy. Kelly bought his two Cheltenham winners from the same source having worked for Tom senior, the famed horse dealer and producer of so many top-class horses winners including Gold Cup winners The Thinker (1987), Cool Ground (‘92), Imperial Call (‘96), Cool Dawn (‘98), Best Mate (2002-’04).

What has been the regime of Presenting Percy, originally bought for Philip’s wife Ann, since those family celebrations after the RSA Chase win at Cheltenham last March?

“After Cheltenham, he went back to Pat’s and was two to three weeks there as he was let down,” Reynolds continued. “Then he came to me and summered in our fields at home with Mall Dini. Great fun to have those two horses to wander around with.

“Last August the intention was to get him started early, normally we would bring him in towards the end of August. But he was going to compete, we thought, in a series of Grade 1s, so we brought him in three weeks earlier last year.

“Then there was a period of six months of trying to bring him to a peak for different races.

“We thought we would be racing in October, but the ground wasn’t right. Then he was meant to go to Clonmel but the ground was good. With the level of fitness he was at, we were happy to compete but ...”

“I heard Willie (Mullins) talking at Gowran about hard it has been to keep the horses fit. And not to get bored either. They get used to a routine and then you have to try and keep them switched on so when they do get a run they are ready.

“Pat (Kelly) did so well. He’s close to the sea there where he trains and he brings them into the water at Morans on the Weir at Clarinbridge.”

So that’s the secret then to Percy, a regular bucketful of oysters!

“Pat has fantastic people all around him. Gerry, his neighbour, lets him use his fields for the horses for a change of scene but there’s nothing quite like the track.

“He’s been saying to me Presenting Percy is not just the best he’s ever trained but one of the best he’s seen.

“Two to three weeks ago the ground at Gowran Park was on the easy side and seems not to have to take on a lot of rain to bring it to our preferred conditions. It was almost bordering on the testing – a good test.”

How did Presenting Percy and Mall Dini (sixth in the Thyestes Chase later on the card) come out of their races at Gowran?

“My horses are fine – it was perfect racing ground at Gowran. Next stop for Percy is back to Gowran for the Red Mills Chase (in which Presenting Percy finished second last year before triumph at Cheltenham) on February 16th. We’ll follow a similar plan to last year.”

But this year it’s the Gold Cup they’re going for.

OPPOSITION

Do you look at the opposition in the lead up?

“I say to Pat, ‘have you seen the entries?’ ‘Naw.’ ‘Have you seen who’s declared?’ ‘Nah. I don’t care. I’m only interested in my own horse’.”

“You’re asking me was Pat a bundle of nerves before the Galmoy? I’d say so but he appears so calm.”

Reynolds confessed to being very moved by the reception his horse got coming back into the parade ring after the Galmoy Hurdle and then when he went out to the stable yard.

“It’s so flattering,” Reynolds agreed. “He comes from a small yard, he tries his heart out, people are liking that. I’m delighted for that.

“I can’t tell you what I paid for him, I never say. But he’s making up for all the others I paid for!

“Pat Kelly has been lucky for me. The Costellos have been lucky for me and Davy Russell has been lucky for me.”

There’s no one who would want to deny Reynolds his own luck.?