BEFORE yesterday's Smurfit Champion Hurdle, everyone knew that Make A Stand would race from the front and try to burn off the opposition. What nobody could have known was how devastatingly well he would pull it off. The Martin Pipe trained novice turned hurdling's greatest race into a proverbial procession.
As Tony McCoy sailed along contentedly in the lead on Make A Stand, the other jockeys must have wished they could wake up from the nightmare unfolding inexorably in front of them. But they couldn't wake up from this course record-breaking dream.
Make A Stand's eventual five-length winning margin over Theatreworld and Space Trucker proved the opposition's helplessness and hinted that their conqueror could mature into an outstanding champion for the foreseeable future.
Pipe, that most enigmatic of trainers, was uncomplicatedly thrilled by Make A Stand's style of victory, which he admitted surprised even him. "From the top of the hill I was worried. The others bunched up behind him, but Tony rode a fantastic race, kept something up his sleeve and the next thing I saw was the sticks up behind him," Pipe beamed.
Even then the English champion trainer was concerned if the six-year-old former selling plater would last up the hill, but, as McCoy said afterwards, the result was never in doubt. "It's a great feeling to make all like that in a Champion Hurdle, but Make A Stand is a wonderful horse.
"At the top of the hill I gave him a bit of a blow and then kicked on. I never saw anything else in the race after we jumped the first hurdle. He's only a novice and hopefully he can come back and win it again," the Co Antrim jockey said.
Four of the Irish team of seven horses filled the places behind Make A Stand, with Aidan O'Brien's 33 to 1 shot Theatreworld staying on through the field to beat Space Trucker, I'm Supposin and Hill Society.
Theatreworld's rider, Norman Williamson, said: "I rode him to be placed and he gave me a super ride, but the winner is a true champion. He just annihilates you with his speed. Whether you take him on early or late, it's the same problem. He cooks you."
Jessica Harrington and John Shortt had no excuses for Space Trucker, who loomed as close to Make A Stand as any horse could manage down the hill. But I'm Supposin's rider Charlie Swan had the air of a man who would like to ride the race again. "It's easy to be wise after the event, but I didn't know how well he would stay and I should have been second or third early on in the race. A mistake at the last possibly cost us second," Swan said.
For almost all of the race though, it was a case of the winner first and the rest nowhere. Backers of the Irish horses at least got a run for their money, unlike those who forced Large Action down to favouritism.
Jamie Osborne pulled Large Action up after the second thinking he was lame, and although it was first suspected the horse pulled a muscle, a veterinary inspection revealed nothing.
Collier Bay was also pulled up and trainer Jim Old blamed the ground. "It's dried up a lot and it's just not his going. If it hadn't been the Champion Hurdle I wouldn't have run him," he said.
For the Irish, the rest of the day was a case of what might have been, although a disastrously blank day means that things can only get better for the visiting team.
The opening Supreme Novices Hurdle, so often a barometer for how the Irish will fare at the festival, returned a definite negative reading as Jamie Osborne powered past the line on Shadow Leader. Irish hopes had been high until the third last when the heavily-backed favourite Finnegans Hollow fell.
"I couldn't believe how easily I was travelling at the time, but I can't say for definite if he would have won," said a downcast Swan.
The JP McManus colours carried by Time For A Run were also made warm favourites for the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Chase, but although Philip Fenton's mount travelled sweetly through the race, a mistake at the second-last saw him quickly off the bridle.
Rallying gallantly, Time For A Run gradually pegged back King Lucifer, but the line came a neck too soon. The stewards considered Fenton's desperation to win too desperate, and to rub salt into the wound gave him a four-day ban for his use of the whip.
Pharanear completed a double for King Lucifer's trainer David Nicholson by winning the Hamlet Gold Car Final, where Ireland's fancied hope Miltonfield could only finish fifth.
But appropriately, the most significant double was notched up by the Pipe-McCoy team. When the red hot favourite Mulligan crashed at the final ditch, the Arkle Trophy opened up dramatically, but it closed with the tightest finish of the day as McCoy forced Or Royal's head in front of Squire Silk right on the line. It was a superb warm-up for the main act.
