There’s a wizard in our midst.
George Hill, Clerk of the Course, has performed sorcery to get ‘Super Saturday’ on during a week where racecourses have been reluctantly succumbing to conditions. It’s an incredible effort by the groundstaff team at Newbury.
On Friday, Newbury reported conditions had changed: there was one area of standing water rather than two. It remained unclear whether the quantity had doubled to an ornamental lake or whether George had waved his magic wand, shouting ‘evapotranspiration’.
He’d stayed confident until the eleventh hour, rebuking all scepticism in various media interviews over the course of week.
“Ever in doubt?” I ask, before the first race.
“Never. We had more rain than expected, but this track is bulletproof,” he replies, nonchalantly.
With five weeks to go until the Festival, Cheltenham credentials are on the line. Haiti Couleurs needs to win the Denman Chase to confirm his position in the Gold Cup.
“Does he feel better than Haydock?” asks one of the Brizzle Boy owners nervously.
“He feels better than Chepstow,” laughs his lad, as the big gelding tows around the pre-parade with the dogged determination of a man with a job to do.
The deluge returns as the four runners hit the track but it doesn’t matter to Haiti Couleurs, who takes up his customary front-running position, grinding opposition into submission. The performance is reminiscent of a certain Native River – maybe they’ve had a chat before the RoR Parade.
The team welcome in their sodden hero and Rebecca Curtis looks like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders.
“I can relax now,” she breathes to herself, before turning to the Sky Sports cameras. “Job done. It was nervy coming here, there was a lot of expectations on him so I’m pleased we’ve got it out of the way. He’s kept it very simple. All systems go for the Gold Cup in March.”
Sean Bowen is equally happy. “It’s the perfect preparation for Cheltenham,” he tells everyone in the winner’s enclosure. A Cheltenham Gold Cup would be the ideal first Grade 1 over fences – a surprising omission from the Champion Jockey’s CV.
Lulamba makes hard work of the Game Spirit Chase for 90 per cent of the race, before remembering his lofty reputation and securing a comfortable success over Saint Segal.
“You can see why we had to do that,” explains Nicky Henderson. “He would have learnt a lot.”
I have poor luck-in-running for the return journey to the press room and find myself in conversation with an earnest punter, intent on Tutti Quanti’s chances in the William Hill Hurdle.
“He’ll have to be fit after a break,” I muse, playing along. “It’s a lot of weight on bad ground.”
He looks at me with undisguised pity and sighs deeply.
“It’s a handicap. Each of the horses are allocated a weight and if the handicapper has the ratings right, it should be a blanket finish.”
The handicapper and I are both wrong, as it happens. Tutti Quanti relishes the heavy going and comes home 15 lengths clear. There’s an argument to suggest his rating may have underestimated the gelding’s ability, but we all know Dominic Gardiner-Hill won’t make the same mistake twice.
“He is the first horse ever to do that with that weight,” concedes Paul Nicholls. “I was a little bit nervous as the record books tell you off twelve stone it is hard to win a race like this, but he has annihilated them.”
“Colm and I have both said we could supplement him for the Champion Hurdle if we wanted to. It is an open race this season and if the ground was testing he would want to be in there.”
So we’ve ended the day with a Cheltenham Gold Cup hopeful, a short-priced favourite for the Arkle and a dark horse for a heavy-ground Champion Hurdle. Haiti Couleurs, Lulamba and Tutti Quanti may have starred but Newbury’s ‘Super Saturday’ feels like the real winner.
Roll on the Festival, some may say – but we’ve got to go to Southwell first...
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