The English page: Halfway through Cheltenham N.H. Festival

The flat season is slowly getting under way and we have the first group race of the year at Saint Cloud on Saturday, while in Germany Krefeld´s fixture this Sunday is the first meeting of 2022 on turf. However the spotlight is still firmly on N.H. racing, and the season has reached its climax this week, at least as far as the British and Irish are concerned, with the Cheltenham N.H. Festival which started on Tuesday and continues until Friday.

This column was wrong to suggest last week that one should always bet against the favourites, and in fact favourite bettors have done pretty well this week, with Constitution Hill (Blue Bresil), Edwardstone (Kayf Tara) and Honeysuckle (Sulamani) winning the first three races on Tuesday and Sir Gerhard (Jeremy), L`Homme Pressé (Diamond Boy) and Facile Vega (Walk in the Park) all obliging yesterday (Wednesday), but it has not all been one-way traffic and there have been a few longshots scoring as well, and the bookies were saved a fortune when Shishkin (Sholokhov) was pulled up in the Queen Mother Champion Chase yesterday; the odds-on favourite was a banker in many thousands of accumulator bets.

The reason for Shishkin´s poor performance was simple: he could not act on the rain-soaked ground. The going had been fast on Tuesday, indeed Constitution Hill had established a new course record when winning the Supreme Novices Hurdle, the opening race; however the racecourse officials made a big mistake by watering the course on Tuesday evening after several jockeys complained that the going was too fast. Weather forecasts are of course not always reliable, but it always looked likely that there would be a lot of rain on Wednesday, and so it proved. The ground turned heavy and was very testing. At the time of writing the weather is now better again, although the going will still probably be heavy today, but it will be much better tomorrow.

Friday´s two top races are the opening Triumph Hurdle for 4yo´s, the unofficial championship for juvenile hurdlers and the fourth race, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the best steeplechase of the entire season. The latter race has been dominated by the Irish in recent years and this looks like being the case again. Willie Mullins has three runners, with Al Boum Photo (Bucks Boom), the winner in 2019 and 2020, likely to be the best chance. Henry de Bromhead had the first two last year and they both run again –Minella Indo (Beat Hollow) and A Plus Tard (Kapgarde); the latter would be extremely popular as he will be ridden by the wonderful Rachael Blackmore, who rode the winner of the Champion Hurdle Honeysuckle (Sulamani) on Tuesday; Honeysuckle, who is out of a German mare, is now unbeaten in 15 starts and is clearly the brightest star of N.H. racing at present. Gordon Elliott´s Galvin (Gold Well) is another big hope trained in Ireland, while the Skeltons´ Protektorat (Saints des Saints) is possibly the main British hope. That one is out of a mare by the smart German stayer Protektor; he was by firm ground performer Acatenango so perhaps will need the ground to dry out some more.

The original fancy for the Gold Cup by your correspondent was multiple Grade One scorer Delta Work, but Gigginstown Stud´s good stayer was switched to yesterday´s Cross Country – surprisingly, as Gigginstown already had the firm favourite for that event in course specialist (5 wins) and dual Grand National winner Tiger Roll (Authorized). Tiger Roll is a hugely popular horse and this race was to be the 12yo´s swansong, but in terms of sheer class Delta Work is almost certainly the better horse, and he overhauled his stable companion in the final 100 yards to win by three parts of a length with the rest miles back. This result was greeted by boos from the large crowd, which was certainly unsporting, but most of them were hoping to see Tiger Roll end his glorious cafreer with a final festival victory, but it was not to be. Tiger Roll has now been retired, with lifetime earnings of well over a million pounds, while Delta Work could well run in the Grand National.

The interesting feature for us of this result  was that Delta Work is by the Gestüt Wittekindshof-bred Network (Monsun), who has been a major success as a N.H. sire. He was a smart 3yo for Andreas Schütz in the year 2000, but when his racing career was over he was bought by the French National Studs, and stood at various locations in France, covering mainly N.H. and AQPS mares. Later he was acquired by Haras d´Enki and stood there for the final four years of life before his death in 2019. He suffered from poor fertility in the latter stages, but has still left plenty of high class performers, almost all over jumps, the best being the triple Champion Chase winner Sprinter Sacre, still rated the best chaser since Arkle.

Stallion sons of Monsun continue to make a splash, and others to note from the first two days of Cheltenham are Shirocco, sire Queen´s Brook, placed in the Mares Hurdle, Noroit, sire of Funambule Sivola, runner-up in the Champion Chase, and Aizavoski, sire of Whatdoewant, third in the Ballymore.

Next week we shall at the final two days of Cheltenham, with particular reference to pedigrees with a strong German element, and also have a brief look at the opening of the German turf season this Sunday at Krefeld.

David Conolly-Smith

David Conolly-Smith