Few horses have arrived at Cheltenham with the same hype as Dunguib at the 2010 Festival. A year before, Philip Fenton’s horse exploded on to the scene by way of a demolition job in the Champion Bumper and in the preceding 12 months he had recorded four wins out of four over hurdles, two of which were Grade 1s and all of which were achieved while never coming off the bridle.
Irish bankers tend to attract unconditional betting support at whatever stage of the week but the fact that Dunguib took his chance in the opening race on the opening day, with the travelling army fully locked and loaded, meant that the son of Presenting was near guaranteed to start odds-on.
The race may not have gone to the initial plan of Dunguib’s regular partner Brian O’Connell, who charted a passage out wide, and when Dunguib came off the bridle for the first time over hurdles in the straight, he failed to pick up the Philip Hobbs-trained Menorah, a 12/1 shot, and could only finish third, much to his supporters’ dismay.
“If he stays up, he wins.” If you wanted to track the origin of this betting ring cliche, Moscow Flyer is a case in point. Jessica Harrington’s ever-popular chaser was the Irish banker at the 2003 Festival, a run which came in the middle of a truly unique form sequence where in 20 runs starting from his chase debut in October 2001 and ending in November 2004, the son of Moscow Society would win three times in a row but then fail to complete on his fourth start.
On this occasion, strictly by the sequence, he wasn’t due to fall until the run after Cheltenham, which provided his supporters with a little more peace of mind. A year before, Brian Kearney’s gelding took the scalp of a British banker of sorts, Seebald, in the Arkle, and he warmed up for his Cheltenham return with comfortable Grade 2 and Grade 3 wins at Leopardstown and Punchestown respectively.
On course, bookmakers opened up Moscow Flyer at 5/2, but the money came hard, and Barry Geraghty’s mount eventually went off at 7/4. The race was a helter-skelter affair, they went off like the clappers, and there was drama at the second last where both outsider Latalomne and old rival Seebald fell simultaneously. That left Moscow Flyer clear, much to the delight of his supporters, and he stormed up the hill for his first Queen Mother Champion Chase.
Where to start with Annie Power at Cheltenham? It could be a book in itself. The logical place to start is the start. The Willie Mullins-trained mare made her first Festival appearance in 2014, after impressing over “middle-distances” in three runs that season. A month before the Festival, the big question was whether she would drop down in distance for the Champion Hurdle or step up in trip for the World Hurdle.
A week before, connections finally made a decision, opting to take on the ageing Big Buck’s in the stayers’ race and when the news came through, the daughter of Shirocco was heavily supported – 11/4 into 2/1. On the day, she was a rock-solid 11/8 chance in the ring.
She was ridden confidently by Ruby Walsh and began to make ground on the run into the straight. Walsh decided to follow the run of At Fishers Cross, the choice ride of Tony McCoy over J.P. McManus’s other fancied runner More Of That, and when Annie jumped alongside the previous season’s Albert Bartlett winner, she looked set for a famous win. However, the unexposed More Of That was still there to Walsh’s left, and having just his fifth ever run, Jonjo O’Neill’s five-year-old responded gamely to Barry Geraghty’s urgings to outstay Annie up the hill.
The 2002 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle was bridging a gap of 726 days between Cheltenham Festival races due to the foot-and-mouth outbreak leading to a cancellation of the meeting the year before. The Festival needed a jump-start and it came through J.P. McManus’s popular mare Like-A-Butterfly.
A mare can garner a special sort of affection from the racing public but with Like-A-Butterfly’s Supreme bid, it was a case of betting with the head and heart. She was tough, she was genuine and she was unbeaten in seven starts, including two Grade 1 victories. Perhaps more significantly, she had beaten the best novices in Ireland in the Deloitte and Touche Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown a month before. What’s more, she had to carry Grade 1 penalty in that so was giving weight away to all of her rivals, but at Cheltenham she would be receiving 5lbs from the majority of the 28-runner field. She looked rock solid, opening up 5/2 before reaching 7/4 at the off.
The eight-year-old travelled close to the pace throughout and was sent to the front just before the last, but it was here that Ruby Walsh loomed up on Adamant Approach. That pair looked set to spoil the party but the Willie Mullins horse took a crashing fall, which left Swan and Like-A-Butterfly in the lead and from here they managed to fend off the battling Westender to land a famous win.
Pont Alexandre was declared an Irish banker a fair way out from the 2013 Festival. So when Willie Mullins sent out Champagne Fever, Hurricane Fly and Quevega to win on the first day of the meeting, whatever you won was likely heading on to this unbeaten Irish favourite in the first race on Wednesday.
Pont Alexandre was said to be the next coming. He was allowed to make his Irish debut in a Grade 1, the Navan Novice Hurdle, and he could hardly have been more impressive, easily holding the measure of one Don Cossack. The French-bred son of Dai Jin, wearing the now-becoming-familiar pink and green silks of Susannah and Rich Ricci, then went on to Leopardstown and ran a Grade 2 field ragged, with nothing able to lay up with him. He had an aura of invincibility heading into the Festival and was sent off 6/4 favourite to get Irish punters off to another flying start.
He took up the running from flag-fall and was still there coming to the bottom of the hill, initiating a roar from an expectant crowd. But it was here that Pont Alexandre showed his first signs of weakness and when The New One swept past, he had no answer and eventually trailed home in third.
With the Irish challenge at Cheltenham growing ever stronger, the value of the title Irish banker perhaps carries less weight than it used to. There can be six or seven bankers running for Ireland now - spoiling for choice those travelling across the Irish Sea. The title of Irish banker was huge in the 1990s when every travelling winner was cherished. This was the Irish-trained horse with the best chance of winning and so carried the hopes of all travelling over, and everyone back home as well. In 1994 the Irish banker was Danoli, the people’s champion.
Tom Foley’s gelding had captured the imagination of the Irish public in his novice hurdle campaign, finishing second in the Irish Champion Hurdle and then warming up for Cheltenham with a 10-length win in the Deloitte and Touche Novice Hurdle back at Leopardstown again. Due to take his chance in the Sun Alliance Novices’ Hurdle, the opening race on the second day of the festival, Danoli was subject of wades of money, on course and off course, on both sides of the Irish Sea. Partnered by Charlie Swan, he duly did the business, hitting the front as early as halfway down the hill, and gamely holding off British challenger Corrouge in front of rapturous crowd. The late George Ennor famously wrote of the race: “They cheered him down to the start, they cheered him as he started, they cheered more loudly as he took the lead and they raised the roof as he passed the post in front.”
The successful gamble became legend. J.P. McManus reportedly having lost £30,000 the day before, had £80,000 on Danoli and was quoted after the race: “That put the wheels back on the bike.”
Noel Meade allowed Heist to make his debut in a Leopardstown bumper at the beginning of 1993. Sent off even-money favourite, Heist controlled the race and ran out a comfortable five-length winner from a horse called Rhythm Section. Meade earmarked the Champion Bumper for the son of Homeboy and he earmarked champion jockey Charlie Swan for the ride. Swan rode Heist in a piece of work at Fairyhouse three weeks before the Festival and when he got off the horse, he told Meade they’d be back in the Cheltenham winner’s enclosure before the rest of the field had finished their race. The word must have gotten out.
Paul Carberry had just lost his 10lb claim. He was riding out at Meade’s but he didn’t expect to be riding Heist at Cheltenham. He was only 19, had never ridden at Cheltenham and so it was logical for Meade to book the champion jockey at the time. Homer Scott, trainer of Rhythm Section, rang Carberry not long after the Leopardstown race to see if he’d ride him in the Champion Bumper. Sent off the 16/1 shot, Rhythm Section was always handy for Carberry and still going well coming down the hill, the 19-year-old decided to kick on and he had built up a sizeable advantage halfway up the hill. Heist was a good horse, he picked up well for Swan, he accelerated to get after the leader and he made up ground fast, but Carberry had stolen a march and by the line, still had a length to spare. First ride, first winner at Cheltenham, on St Patrick’s Day. Just a pity it was the Irish banker for his boss Noel Meade he had beaten in second.
There might have been two Irish bankers at the 1997 Festival. Well, one banker on the Tuesday and if that one lost, one for insurance on the Wednesday. That was the way things were said to have fallen for J.P. McManus anyway.
McManus ploughed into his Finnegan’s Hollow in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle on the first day. The son of Bulldozer, sent off at 2/1 to get favourite backers off to a winning start, travelled supremely well and looked the most likely winner until falling at the third last, much to the angst of the majority of the Irish lined up in Prestbury Park. Alas there is always another race and the Istabraq insurance policy kicked in. Part of the reason Finnegan’s Hollow went off such a short price was because of his close form with Istabraq, who was to take his chance in the Royal SunAlliance Hurdle.
Considered a certainty by many, the level of confidence was probably best depicted by Ted Walsh, who when asked on TV if he would put his last £40,000 on Istabraq, replied: “Yes, and I would also mortgage my house to put another £40,000 on.” This time, there was no mistake as the great son of Sadler’s Wells rewarded J.P. and his compatriot punters with a hard-fought win, initiating a glorious sequence of appearances at the Festival.
Ideally for your Irish banker, you want a battle-hardened sort, ready to run his heart out to tune of a roaring crowd. And you want a jockey to complement that sort of aggression on his back. Brave Inca and Tony McCoy were a match made for the purpose of Irish punting investment. Colm Murphy’s battler had been involved in one of the most famous renewals of the Champion Hurdle 12 months before, when finishing a highly respectable third to Hardy Eustace and Harchibald on what was his first year in senior ranks.
He returned to Cheltenham a year older and wiser, off the back of two Grade 1 wins and with the perennial champion now on his back for guidance. You knew what you got when you backed Brave Inca – he’d come off the bridle earlier than most but he’d keep battling – so even when Macs Joy and Barry Geraghty came there cruising in the straight, you knew Brave Inca was going to keep responding for McCoy.
Roared home by the crowd, Brave Inca answered every call and as Channel 4 commentator Simon Holt labelled him “the bravest of the brave”, landing all bets to get the travelling Irish army off to a flyer on day one.
The day after the Royal & SunAlliance Novice Chase at the 1999 Festival, Greg Wood wrote in the Independent newspaper: “The Festival nearly died here yesterday, in the time it took Nick Dundee to turn from a cruising champion to a tangled mess of legs on the landing side of Cheltenham’s notorious downhill fence ... The winner, Looks Like Trouble, met the hush of a church as he galloped by the grandstand a few seconds later.”
Nick Dundee had won his three previous races, including the Grade 2 Dr P.J. Moriarty Chase at Leopardstown, by an accumulative 60 lengths. Such was the impression he made, Edward O’Grady and John Magnier thought long and hard of pitching him into the Gold Cup. Maybe things would have been so different if they had. He was cantering all over a subsequent Gold Cup winner Looks Like Trouble when he met the downhill fence awkwardly and came down. What made the shock worse was the ginger way in which the son of Supreme Leader stood up, struggling to put weight on his left hind leg. You’d have been forgiven for fearing the worst. Thankfully he lived to fight again, but a lot was left behind on the Cheltenham turf that day, and Nick Dundee was probably never the same horse, racing just five more times in his career.
This article is taken from The Irish Field's Cheltenham 2018 magazine. The 128-page glossy is on sale in most good newsagents and it can be ordered HERE.