THAT was some Hennessy. Okay, so it wasn’t the Hennessy, it was the Ladbrokes Trophy, but if it had been the Hennessy, it would have been some Hennessy.

Whisper ran some race. Nicky Henderson’s horse ran a race that would probably have been good enough to win most Hennessys. But Total Recall ran a better race still.

The pair of them had it between them from the top of the home straight. You could tell at the fourth last fence that Paul Townend and Davy Russell had more horse(s) underneath them than any of the other riders had. And the pair of them pulled away from their rivals, they finished nine lengths clear of third-placed Regal Encore and they clocked a fast time, marginally faster than Racing Post standard, on good to soft ground, and 0.30secs/furlong faster than Racing Post par.

It looked like Whisper had it in the bag when he went on and jumped the final fence in front, with Total Recall on the far side of him. At that point, Whisper traded at 1.12 in-running. They rarely come from behind and get up on the far side at Newbury, around the water jump and all.

But Total Recall did. Under an inspired Paul Townend, Willie Mullins’ horse showed his courage and he showed his class. It was some finish, two willing horses and two top-class Irish riders. The fact that one of them was rewarded with a suspension for over-use of the whip was a nonsense.

For Total Recall’s trainer, it was a record-straight-setter of sorts. Willie doesn’t really do handicaps in Britain, and it doesn’t seem like 15 years since he won the Hennessy with Be My Royal, only to have it whipped away on a technicality. It meant that he was bridging a 37-year gap to the Michael O’Brien-trained Bright Highway, the previous Irish-trained winner.

Incidentally, the Noel Meade-trained Harbour Pilot finished third behind Be My Royal in 2002, and he would almost certainly have beaten Gingembre to the runner-up spot had he not tried to take the final fence home with him as a Hennessy souvenir. So it could have been an Irish winner then, even after Be My Royal’s disqualification.

penalty rue

For Whisper’s trainer Nicky Henderson, he had to have rued the 4lb penalty that his horse incurred for beating Clan Des Obeaux in a two-horse race for a graduation chase at Kempton two and a half weeks previously. It meant that his horse raced off a handicap rating of 161, which was 4lb higher than his mark when the weights were originally cast for Saturday’s race, and 2lb higher even than his revised rating after his Kempton win.

It is true that Smad Place did not pick up a similar penalty for winning the same Kempton graduation chase in 2015 before he went on to win the Hennessy. The difference between 2015 and 2017 is that, in 2015, the Kempton race was on November 2nd, early enough for a penalty not to be incurred.

In 2017, the Kempton race was on November 13th, after November 5th, the date after which penalties were incurred.

Henderson shouldn’t beat himself up too much though. That Kempton run brought Whisper on and probably brought him to peak for Saturday. Without that run, he may not have had the sharpness about him that enabled him put up a career-best performance on Saturday.