IF you can get hugely excited in November and, let’s face it, a lot of jumping fans do, there was plenty to whet the Gold Cup appetite over the last weekend.
And that was with the big two from last year not really in action. (Inothewayurthinkin wasn’t really out to make any statements on Sunday!).
With Galopin Des Champs still a main player for the Gold Cup and yet to reappear, it was left to his up-and-coming stable companions Gaelic Warrior and Fact To File to put on a show at Punchestown. That they did, and let’s hope we see a rematch.
Alongside the Gold Cup, the second most famed race of the chasing season is the King George VI Chase and we have fervent hope that Fact To File and Gaelic Warrior may be permitted by connections to take each other on again.
Add in Jango Baie and The Jukebox Man, (don’t rule out Banbridge), and it looks a cracking race. And it will set up the season even more towards the big one in March. Grey Dawning will be an absentee, but the other three, maybe four, from the weekend are definite players.
Tough races
Both Gaelic Warrior and Fact To File had tough races last Sunday. The statistical data (see Angus McNae column) is always worth adding to the visual impression and it revealed that the ‘chaser’, Fact To File, was actually running faster than Gaelic Warrior as he ‘went in pursuit of Gaelic Warrior with seven furlongs to run and was faster than the winner through each of the subsequent furlongs bar the last’.
The winner is perhaps the better stayer too. He missed Cheltenham last season, but his earlier campaigns and defeats over two miles were perhaps just not the correct distance for him.
Fact To File was strong at the finish of the two miles, five furlongs Ryanair Chase, but it was not a strong in-depth contest and he looked more vulnerable last season over the three miles at Leopardstown. The King George looks ideal for Gaelic Warrior, but he did have a hard race at the weekend.
He is brilliant on his day, but perhaps not the most consistent through a season, being a beaten favourite on five occasions and twice at odds-on.
Timeform rate Galopin Des Champs their top performer on 177 with Fact To File improving his rating to 174, the same as Inothewayurthinkin with Gaelic Warrior on 173.
Jango Baie is 167p after his Ascot romp while The Jukebox Man is 159p. (Grey Dawning 166).
Set up
While he has to take on the best yet, I can’t help feeling the race is setting up perfectly for The Jukebox Man and he is quite likely underrated.
His novice season was cut short, but he has a Grade 1 course and distance win even if he was odds-on to beat Hyland at the meeting last year.
Previously, his novice hurdling season saw him narrowly beaten in the Albert Bartlett Hurdle at the Festival. Now, that race gets a few negative comments compared to the two shorter distanced novices, but the 2024 renewal was high class.
Stellar Story just pipped The Jukebox Man, who had looked the winner over the last.
The top-class Dancing City was seven lengths behind and last year’s Brown Advisory Chase winner Lecky Watson a further length behind with Gidleigh Park even further back. And the first and third were a year older at seven than The Jukebox Man.
He jumped impeccably on Saturday and had the easiest race of the four likely King George runners.
For a race with top-class, proven contenders, it’s very surprising to see that of the last 12 runnings, there were only two winning favourites. Plus Willie Mullins’ only winner - since he became so dominant - was a 28/1 shot.
At 5/1, Ben Pauling’s horse represents good value in the King George.
CAN one word be an effective headline? You might not be guided in that way at journalism school, but the Racing Post made excellent use of one word that had received some negative comments in the Cheltenham build up advertising and certainly was eye-catching. The word is ‘Extraordinary!’
Constitution Hill’s Champion Hurdle win was thus described. But the two pieces of commentary from last year are more concerning as the 2023 champion comes back into action today. “Constitution Hill is DOWN!” at Cheltenham and “Constitution Hil is GONE, HE’S GONE!”, at Aintree.
Today is D-day as he returns to take on the new pretender in The New Lion at Newcastle.
It’s perhaps interesting in a small field that the Henderson camp - or just Nico de Boinville? - declined not to run a pacemaker. Perhaps the intention is to go from the front and a small field could be to his advantage. It will be a ‘hold your breath’ race until he is over the last and, while reservations for remaining over hurdles persist in this quarter, the vibes sound good and hopefully he can show his old sparkle.
I ALWAYS think there is nothing more unpredictable than the breeding of a top National Hunt horse, for all the efforts in finding new stallions or new methods of selecting new stallions.
Jango Baie is the new name coming top of the chasing ranks for both the King George and Gold Cup.
He is by the British-bred but French-raced Tiger Groom.
That horse had a long career by modern standards for an entire horse, racing over hurdles until he was nine, but not at a particularly high level.
But if anyone had said some years ago the brilliant French two-year-old Arazi, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on dirt in an outstanding juvenile season, would go on to sire a horse who in turn would sire a possible Gold Cup winner, you would be taken for going a bit mad!
Barry Orr@1Muttsey
In 2024 Flutter UK & Ire (Paddy Power, SkyBet and Betfair) turnover on horse racing was £1b. It contributed £30m to the bottom line.
Racing and Ralph Beckett is about to find out who their paymasters are. As one senior leader in Flutter told me yesterday ‘Racing is going to die a slow profitable death for us’.
Sam Hoskins@HoskinsSam
Hard to get the violin out for leading betting operators when they have pushed punters towards online casino over horse racing for so long. Many also heavily restrict successful punters. Racing has nothing in common with online casino.
James@jamesaknight
Before anyone in racing pops open the champagne - the reality - Racing is and will remain a very expensive product for operators. It just now has to exist in an environment that has just got a lot tougher for those operators in the UK.