THE TRADITIONAL first-day briefing by Horse Racing Ireland has always been a sign of the times at Cheltenham.
Irish or British alike, journalists attending it used to be set up for the week. Along with copious amounts of information about equine matters, in past years, they were also treated to a goody bag that met many of their other needs, including as it always did a slice of porter cake, a baby bottle of whiskey and a pair of lurid-green St Patrick’s Day socks.
Sad to say, such largesse is now a thing of the past. The whiskey, the cake and (less sadly) the socks are all gone – victims of the new austerity. The nearest thing to a freebie this year was a beer mat. Only the information is still plentiful, although there too, the number of Irish racehorses in training has shrunk since the glory days.
Some things about Cheltenham have not changed, however.
Ruby Walsh still inspires almost blind faith from punters, even this year when he’s just returned from a four-month lay-off with a broken leg.
Also, the most strongly fancied horses are still called “bankers”, despite the dramatically changed connotations. And when Ruby rides an Irish banker to victory here, as he did in the big race yesterday, it still has the capacity to hurt the bookmakers.
Sure enough, a Boylesports spokesman looked a bit traumatised after Hurricane Fly landed the Champion Hurdle.
“We’ve been cleaned out,” he said, which may have been a slight overstatement, but the horse had the added attraction of being saddled by Ireland’s form trainer Willie Mullins. And if the raucous cheers that welcomed him back to the winner’s enclosure were a guide, the bookie was not exaggerating much. The loss was “six-figures”, he added, “and if Quevega wins too, it’ll be seven”.
As luck would have it, Quevega did win, for the third Cheltenham festival running. She was from the same team – trained by Mullins and ridden by Walsh – and even more of a banker than Hurricane Fly.
Owned though by a pair of builders from Clane who call themselves the Hammer and Trowel Syndicate, she was also a ghost of Cheltenham’s past.
Builders are not such prolific racehorse owners as they used to be, despite which, the two Kildare men were not interested in talking about matters other than racing.
“This is not an economic forum,” said Seán Deane (the trowel) as he and Ger O’Brien (the hammer) posed with three-fingered salutes to mark their hat-trick.
DNA is always a major talking point at the festival. Hurricane Fly’s had been much discussed. Before his big win, as with many bankers these days, he had a question mark attached. Everyone connected to him knew he was a star, but the issue was whether he could “get up the hill” for which the finishing straight at Cheltenham is famous.
The problem was that the horse is a son of flat-racing superstar Montjeu, whose numerous progeny had failed this particular test every time they’d tried. There had been 44 such failures before yesterday.
Then Hurricane Fly finally broke the duck and, among the proud connections in the winner’s enclosure yesterday was a man called Pat Cashman, from Cork. So excited was he, we asked if he was the winning owner. “No, but I half-own the mother.”