RACING/JP McMANUS:There would hardly be a trainer or jockey anywhere in Britain or Ireland likely to begrudge JP a win in today's Gold Cup, writes BRIAN O'CONNOR

JP McMANUS likes to tell the story of how his initial attempt to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup ended before it even began.

One of the first horses ever to carry the legendary owner’s famous green and gold silks, Jack Of Trumps, looked to have had his Gold Cup hopes considerably helped when the then “Sundance Kid” heard on the Saturday before the festival that the ante-post favourite, Gay Spartan, was out due to a hairline-fracture.

McManus rang trainer Edward O’Grady in a happy mood – only to be told that Jack Of Trumps had just injured himself and was out too.

Jack Of Trumps never did win a Gold Cup. His owner later invested heavily in a couple of French stars, but fifth to Best Mate in 2004 was the most First Gold could manage while L’Ami ran fourth to War Of Attrition a couple of years later.

Last season, Kempes was well-supported on the back of the Irish bandwagon of success to get the better of Long Run, Denman and Kauto Star. But no bandwagon could get the McManus horse home in front against such glittering opposition.

And so the race that Ireland’s most renowned racehorse owner possibly prizes above all others remains frustratingly elusive.

Even the Grand National bowed to McManus’s will when Don’t Push It scored at Aintree in 2010. That came less than a month after Binocular scored a Champion Hurdle victory that added to Istabraq’s famous hat-trick. And yet the third leg of National Hunt racing’s Triple Crown hasn’t been secured. To a man of McManus’s competitive instincts, after almost 35 years of trying, that must grate.

Synchronised is the one charged with the task of beating Long Run and Kauto Star in steeplechasing’s blue-riband today and if the little horse with the individual style of jumping and bottomless reserves of stamina can pull it off, it will feel even extra-special to his owner.

Home-bred by McManus, Synchronised’s profile as a Welsh National-winning plodder was altered dramatically when handing out a decisive beating to most of the top Irish chasers in Leopardstown’s Lexus Chase over Christmas.

It was the owner who made the call on taking on class opposition rather than going back to the tried-and-trusted Welsh National.

The fact that the Gold Cup was immediately nominated as a target after that is significant. Tony McCoy may have initially felt Kauto and Long Run wouldn’t be worrying themselves unduly about Synchronised, but even the champion jockey has learned that dismissing his employer’s opinion on race-planning is foolhardy.

“I would rather ride a 50 to 1 shot of his than a 6 to 4 favourite,” McCoy once said about the man he has been first jockey to for the last eight years.

There’s hardly a trainer or jockey anywhere in Britain or Ireland likely to begrudge McManus should Synchronised spring a surprise this afternoon. Famously generous to those within his inner-circle, there is also recognition that it is his continuing patronage that keeps many yards on the go. There would also be an apt synchronicity to a Synchronised success.

It is 30 years since Mr Donovan gave McManus the first of his 34 festival wins at Cheltenham. The horse justified a monster gamble that earned his owner a reported quarter of a million sterling in bets.

“It was great to have a winner at Cheltenham,” McManus later remembered. “But the fact that I backed him made it all the sweeter. The money was important.”

These days beating the bookies can hardly be as important for the Swiss-based billionaire currency trader. But a Gold Cup remains the ultimate prize in jump racing.

How much would the ultimate trader give to finally win it?