2007

IT was hard to believe that racing had taken place on good ground only 24 hours before when Saturday’s Cheltenham meeting got underway.

A fierce wind blew, the threatened rain arrived, and the closing bumper was abandoned in sharply deteriorating conditions. None of that made any difference to Henry de Bromhead’s Sizing Europe, who won the valuable Grade 3 Greatwood Handicap Hurdle very impressively indeed.

No relation to stable-companion Sizing Australia, who finished a good second in the novices’ chase on Paddy Power Gold Cup day, and also owned by Alan Potts, the five-year-old Sizing Europe led five from home, allowed David Pipe’s Osana to come to him, then asserted again and sailed clear to score by four lengths.

No chance

Chivalry and Trouble At Bay kept on well enough for third and fourth, but had no chance with the winner who may turn out to be better than a handicapper, as his trainer hopes.

“I’m a dreamer, and I’m certainly hoping this horse could be good enough for the Champion Hurdle,” said de Bromhead, whose first Cheltenham winner this was. “I have a real plan for him right now, but we’ll look for a conditions race and take on some good horses at level weights.”

Timmy Murphy’s luck changed at last after suspensions totalling 27 days in recent times. He gave the winner his usual polished ride, asking for no more than was strictly necessary in the gluepot conditions.

“I’ve had better times, and this has not been a great meeting for me so far, but this horse has done everything right for me, and he deserved to win after his unlucky fall in Ireland last time,” Murphy said. “I was beginning to think I could do nothing right, as I’m not trying one day and doing too much the next, apparently.”

Sizing Europe is available at 25/1 with Ladbrokes for the Champion Hurdle.

[Sizing Europe actually started the 2/1 favourite for the 2008 Champion Hurdle, following his eight-length demolition of Hardy Eustace in the Grade 1 AIG Europe Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown.

At Cheltenham he was virtually pulled up, and was later found to have strained his sacroiliac joint in his back.

Sent chasing, Sizing Europe won six Grade 1 races over fences, including the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham and the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown in 2011, and he won two editions of the Champion Chase at Punchestown.

A son of Pistolet Bleu and bred by Angela Bracken, Sizing Europe earned in excess of £1.3 million from 21 wins, exactly half of his 42 lifetime starts over hurdles and fences, and he won one of his three outings in bumpers. He finished in the first four in 38 of his 45 starts]

Irwin loses his cool at Goffs

1982

GOFFS finished up its sales year with a four-day stint at Kill.

The bare gross shows an alarming 25% drop in aggregate, but, in fact, the 1981 figure was distorted by the dispersal sale of the Tim Rogers/Robert Sangster partnership. Taking these lots out of the catalogue, the sale was considered satisfactory, showing a slight improvement on last year.

However, the drop from 82% to 63% of the offered lots sold is a most worrying trend, and highlights the pattern of a healthy demand for the better type of animal, but a complete disinterest in the inferior specimen. Many breeders will not now have a happy time with their sums.

The normal drowsiness at the beginning of the sale on Sunday morning at 11am was shattered by an extremely irate managing director, Jonathan Irwin.

Castigated vendors

Speaking from the rostrum, he castigated vendors who “made a mockery of the country and a mockery of this company”. On the previous day there were large numbers of prospective buyers, including many from overseas, who came to Kill to look at the foals, and found a half-deserted sales paddock.

No wonder Irwin added that “this is a commercial, not an amateur, enterprise”. He insisted that all horses will have to arrive at least 24 hours before the sale in future. Maybe, after this week’s prices, breeders will take these remarks seriously.

Double for Bryce-Smith at Naas

1957

A.C. Bryce-Smith, who trains at Cherrymount, Kells, Co Meath, took the honours at Naas on Saturday.

He saddled Venerdi Santo to win the Naas November Handicap, Tom Brown completing a double for the stables when scoring in the concluding Kildangan Plate. Bryce-Smith won the Naas November Handicap in 1955 with Boltown Comet.

Venerdi Santo kept galloping on strongly, hard ridden by young apprentice R Moylan, to keep the Bryce-Smith candidate in front at the post.

The other Bryce-Smith winner, Tom Brown, who had finished second when a 4/6 chance at the last Naas meeting, was on offer at 4/1 for the Kildangan Plate. Favourite here at 4/5 was the Sleator-trained Desert Hawk, who failed by a length to hold the winner.

Tom Brown was brought with a smooth, sustained run on the outside by Mr C.B. Harty, and swept past the ‘hot pot’ inside the distance.

[Arnold Cyril Bryce-Smith was a very successful trainer. He and his wife Jean enjoyed many successes and their son John trained a number of well-known performers. Their daughter Helen McDonogh was a pioneering lady rider in Ireland. Married to Des, they handled the career of dual Champion Hurdle winner Monksfield and others. The McDonogh’s son Declan is a multiple Group 1-winning jockey]

No double century for Richards

1932

SYMPATHISERS with Gordon Richards’ ambition to ride 200 winners in a season have been down in the dumps this week, their hero’s luck being manifestly out, and his chance of a successful achievement fading away steadily, day by day.

On Thursday morning he had 188 winning mounts to his credit, and thus would need to average four wins for each of the three days left; an impossible average to achieve.

It has been a generous sentiment on the part of the public that has caused an interest in Gordon Richards’ attempt to be so general. A section of the public is, no doubt, always too ready to lionise jockeys, but in the present case none will deny that the little man is well worthy of the affection he is held in.

There must be something high-class, morally, mentally and physically, in a man who, starting with nothing and in his youth completely detached from a racing environment, as has been the case with Richards, which makes him triumph over all obstacles, and reach the top of his profession as champion jockey.

It is to be imagined that Fred Archer’s figures if 246 winners in a season, achieved in 1885, will never be beaten.

[Champion jockey 26 times in England, and later knighted, Gordon Richards rode 4,870 winners from 21,843 rides.

In 1933 Gordon Richards finally beat Archer’s record, kicking home 259 winners. Incredibly he was to set the bar higher 14 years later winning 269 times, and two years later he threatened again to set a new mark, ending the year with 261 wins]