Dismissed beforehand as a has been, Imperial Call came out swinging for yesterday's Heineken Gold Cup and left Florida Pearl and Dorans Pride punch-drunk in his wake.
Rarely has there been a more dramatic racing comeback. A brilliant young horse who looked to have a glittering career ahead of him after winning the 1996 Cheltenham Gold Cup, Imperial Call subsequently suffered a depressing litany of injuries and problems.
A distant third to Teeton Mill in last December's King George looked to be the limit of the older Imperial Call's ambition, an impression that was reinforced when taken out on the eve of the Gold Cup with a lung infection. However, while luck may be temporary, talent is not.
Ridden for the first time by the champion jockey elect Ruby Walsh, Imperial Call made all in yesterday's £120,000 feature and his better fancied rivals just couldn't get close enough to land a blow.
"It's great that he has redeemed himself like this," said the old hero's new trainer Raymond Hurley. Taking over such a horse from the retired Fergie Sutherland can have been no easy task for the 23-year-old from Ballinascarthy in West Cork. Comparisons to when the horse was at his peak were always likely but Hurley never believed that Imperial Call had, to use racing's parlance, "gone."
Hurley said: "He has just needed time but he has been thriving in the last two weeks and I expected him to run a big race. He wasn't spot on at Kempton and it broke my heart that he couldn't run in the Gold Cup. The owners have been great. The horse needed time but it must have been frustrating for them to have such a good horse not running."
Walsh was clearly thrilled with his first Imperial experience and admitted: "I rode him work last Friday and I thought he had a real chance." Asked about the Gold Cup next year, Walsh replied "you never know" although Ladbrokes were content to make Imperial Call a 20 to 1 shot for another Cheltenham success.
Florida Pearl finished 14 lengths off the winner with Dorans Pride a distance back in third and Escartefigue happily ran loose after falling at the first. Florida Pearl was disappointing and Willie Mullins was typically candid afterwards.
"Maybe this is as good as he is, a good novice who maybe needs time to make the top grade. He appeared flat at Cheltenham and he was the same here. The star image has gone off him now and maybe we can do different things with him," said Mullins who didn't rule out a change of tactics next season.
Michael Hourigan said that Dorans Pride's mistake at the fourth last hadn't helped but spoke for everyone when saying: "The winner was brilliant on the day."
Favourite backers were also out of luck in the Stanley Cooker Champion Hurdle when Native Upmanship, John Magnier's only horse with Arthur Moore, proved much too good for Wither Or Which and Colonel Yeager.
"He'll go chasing next season and if he doesn't take to that he looks good enough now for the Stayers Hurdle," said Moore.
The favourite Joe Mac, who finished sixth, sadly collapsed and died after the race, one of three horses to lose their lives on the day. "He gave me a great feel in the race. I thought he was just tired but then he started to shake, I jumped off and he just collapsed," said Joe Mac's rider Conor O'Dwyer.
Ingonish, third in the Paddy Power Bumper, broke a leg yards after passing the post in the race won by the 25 to 1 eight-year-old Our Bid. "He has always had leg problems but he has always been good," said Kevin Prendergast.
Storm Gem broke her back when falling at the third in the handicap chase won by the English-trained Bouchasson and the raiders also struck when the star hunter Castle Mane resisted the persistent Sheltering in the last.
The tidy sum of £1,467,748 was bet with the bookmakers yesterday and there was a second day Tote record of £518,406.
