THERE’S a line in last year’s award-winning movie Conclave where Ralph Fiennes’ Cardinal Lawrence professes to Stanley Tucci’s Cardinal Bellini, as Bellini states he can’t be considered for Pope because he has doubt. The reply was “If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery and therefore no need for faith.”

And it’s the week of keeping the faith. The bookmaker promo emails reeled in last Sunday, “In Mullins we trust...” Follow the wise man of Cheltenham. It’s a case of how many winners will he have?

J.P. says Willie told him he’d win either of the novice hurdles with Mighty Park. But what’s this, one, two, three, four to Britain in the first. The doubts have come. With the in and out season of many from Closutton, the certainty of a Mullins blitz is halted and those doubts appear!

Ah, but cometh the hour, cometh the girls and Kargese with resolution, and Lossiemouth with class, put the show back on the road. Three different riders picked up Grade 1s, Townend, Danny and Harry Cobden. Cheekpieces on, hoods off, Willie was the Saviour again.

Lot of attention

We had two ‘spats’ that got a lot of attention over the week, the starts and the ground being the big issues. We had Declan and Nico to shake hands, but Willie and Mr Pullin didn’t see eye to eye.

Later in the week, the Mullins comments were not received so well, especially among the online comments, many suggesting the comments were a bit of a veiled threat.

“Good ground is not good enough for the type of individual we are buying and trying to race. If the ground is going to be like this, we’re not going to bring them. We were promised watering,” he said after withdrawing Fact To File from the Ryanair, and after Bambino Fever had disappointed in the Mares’ Novice Hurdle. He had earlier in the morning expressed concerns in a chat with Nick Luck - saying: “The ground is lively, a lot of owners and trainers are not happy that there hasn’t been water put on the track at this stage,” and David Casey had backed him up.

J.P. McManus was also in agreement on ITV saying: “There were parts of the course that weren’t altogether to my liking. I’ve walked the track every day - I think they could have done more, especially at the top of the track.”

Divine intervention

No sooner was all that said, than the rain came mid-afternoon on Thursday.

Perhaps we had some divine intervention again (!), many having felt that the horse deserved a crack at the Gold Cup, given his dominant win in the Irish Gold Cup. The runners in the Pertemps, certainly to the eye, seemed to be cutting up divots. But concerns over inconsistent patches of ground seemed to be the issue.

Then, despite rain overnight, yesterday morning, Spillane’s Tower, the second of the two J.P. McManus horses, was withdrawn from the Gold Cup. After winning the Triumph, Patrick Mullins said it was perfect jumping ground, and it suited Dinoblue.

One take was that conditions were naturally occurring and once watered to be ‘safe’, plus fresh ground for the Gold Cup, it might suit horses who preferred a ‘good’ surface, Banbridge being one. The expectation of rain made it difficult with one day still to go and rain came for Friday.

Ruby Walsh was of the opinion, better to water, let it rain and then cope with those conditions.

It was officially good at Kempton, where the two Mullins horses ran in the King George and Kitzbuhel won the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase. Presumably, it was considered safe, even if Fact To File ran below par.

Another element on ground conditions was that many horses that ran on heavy ground as Fact To File did at the DRF, then performed poorly at Cheltenham. Did that too leave a bit of a mark?

It’s not how you start…

OH yes it is... Whatever about ground conditions being difficult to predict, how to get off to a fair start should be predictable.

It should be possible to get 20 horses off and running where they will all go off within a length of each other.

It’s 33 years ago, when a shambles at the start led to the 1993 Grand National being voided, that trainer John Upson got into trouble for saying “It’s an absolute disgrace that the world’s number one National Hunt race is run like this. It would not happen in a point-to-point field in Ireland.”

Are we near there again? It came back to mind this week when it seemed impossible for the Cheltenham starter to get any of the larger field races off to a reasonable start.

Ruby Walsh summed it up on TV. “It’s 2026, how no one has devised a tape that can roll ahead of the horses that can be released. We can send missiles after fighter planes in the gulf, but no one can devise a rolling fly away tape.” It’s simply gotta get better.

What was the highlight of Cheltenham?

THERE were a few negative stories floating through the Festival, but surely you find a bit of controversy at any big sporting event?

Lossiemouth getting her name on the Champion Hurdle trophy was one highlight for me.

And another was also the jockey interviews, so many speaking so well, not something you generally find in all sports, and how much a win at the Festival meant to them.

Owners and grooms got a bit more attention with the TV cameras taking it all in and, all in all, the joy of success, even in the handicaps, made the week.