Ed Chamberlin column: Reflections on the 2022 Cheltenham Festival
What a sensational week for horse racing. We made headlines around the world – every Saturday newspaper had a picture of Rachael Blackmore staring back at you. This is publicity the sport could only dream of.
Flat racing has always had Frankie Dettori as a global superstar – now jump racing arguably has its first.
I can’t tell you how many news outlets rang me on Friday night to get quotes and I was asked to write an additional piece in The Telegraph that I normally wouldn’t do. Rachael Blackmore is taking jumps racing to places it’s never been.
And to think at the start of the of week my biggest wish was to see Rachael win the Unibet Champion Hurdle on Honeysuckle – and my how that one was granted.
It was wonderful to see the pair getting the adulation that they deserved and missed out on 12 months ago. The reception she received was spinetingling, up there with the iconic ones of the past such as Istabraq and Dawn Run.
It was a pleasure to see the stands and bars emptying as people rushed to get a vantage point to welcome them back. Rachael is the best thing this sport could hope to have to promote itself to a wider audience.
Golden Friday moment
It felt special – and then on Friday and the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup. Well wow. What a performance from A Plus Tard as he took revenge on stablemate Minella Indo from 12 months previously.
The scenes afterwards will live long in the memory as he and Rachael returned to be greeted by a massive Cheltenham crowd.
The people I feel sorry for are Henry de Bromhead and Willie Mullins. Henry trained the one-two in the Gold Cup for the second successive season, won the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup for the second successive season.
Willie trained ten winners during the week to be leading trainer at the Festival – including five on Friday alone. Yet you won’t see a headline about either anywhere!
I also went into the week hoping the love would be shared around – and it was, more than I could have envisaged. We’ve seen winners for syndicates like Middleham Park Racing and the Noel Fehily Racing Club.
Winners for Ireland (as expected), England, Wales with Coole Cody and Scotland via Corach Rambler.
It’s so important for a terrestrial TV audience to see different people tasting success, domination by one stable can be a real turn off for general sports fans who we attract for this week.
It’s a week that’s had a bit of everything to warm the hearts and lift the spirits at such a miserable time.
At least there was a home defence
The priority as always was to find winners – wherever they are trained – but it was good to see Britain putting up such a fight.
The Sky Bet Supreme threw up a proper superstar in Constitution Hill and with him being owned by Michael Buckley we’re in for some fun as he’s a man who loves a challenge. In this horse he looks to have a star with the lot, temperament, technique and speed.
He also has the highest ever Timeform rating for a novice hurdler, 177p, after this stunning display.
The Sporting Life Arkle was won by Edwardstone and afterwards there was an outpouring of love for his trainer Alan King, who had the noose around his neck of having not had a Festival winner since 2015.
He must have been sick to death of me mentioning it and he looked like the most relieved man of the week after his new stable star produced a smooth performance to win the Grade One.
His sidestep to avoid a faller was, in Sir Anthony McCoy’s words, Patrick Swayze-esque, and it was great to see Tom Cannon in the limelight. Ruby Wash explained beforehand what pressure he would have been feeling going out for such a big ride.
Pullin not to blame
If Tuesday was a most wonderful day to present, Wednesday was miserable. I was uncomfortable seeing the flak clerk of the course Jon Pullin was getting over the decision to water too.
There was real concern on Tuesday evening about the ground quickening up and the fast times that were resulting. Every weather forecast varied too.
Some said there was going to be nine millimetres of rain – my own app said zero. So what was Jon supposed to do?
One thing I know for sure is I’d rather have heavy ground than fast ground and even those predicting those nine millimetres were taken aback when 22 actually fell.
Alongside being chief executive of the BHA, clerk of the course must be the most difficult job in racing and I thought Jon handled all the difficulties this week with a calm assurance.
The Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase summed up why we love sport - you can never predict what’s going to happen.
We’ve been very lucky this season with the big races living up their billing, but this one didn’t and fell flat when Shishkin pulled up and Chacun Pour Soi unseated Patrick Mullins at the top of the hill.
That’s not to take anything away from Energumene’s brilliance and the achievement of Willie Mullins finally winning the one Cheltenham Grade One that had previously eluded him.
I’ve never seen the trainer as emotional as he was afterwards, having a tear in his eye as he spoke to Rishi Persad and having to deflect the interview having become choked up.
As Willie said on these pages before the Festival, the Champion Chase and the Melbourne Cup were the two races still on his wishlist. In Vauban, Friday’s brilliant JCB Triumph Hurdle winner, he might have a horse to scratch the Australian itch too.
Galopin the star novice
I fancied Ahoy Senor for the Brown Advisory and what an engine he must have to be in the shake-up after that mistake at the third last. He bumped into a seriously good horse, too, in L’Homme Presse who as the runner-up rallied over the last, pricked his ears and waved him goodbye to have our pundits in absolute raptures.
The quality of the novice chasers is really exciting for the future. The National Hunt Chase may have been short on quantity this year but had a very good winner in Stattler who now has a Timeform rating of 160p.
But as good as he and L’Homme Presse are, Galopin Des Champs looked something out of the ordinary in the Turners.
In her winning interview afterwards Rachael was aghast at the speed they’d gone – I don’t think she’d ever been as quick before. It’s cruel what happened at the last, he jumped the fence perfectly.
Any criticism Paul Townend received was unjust. Ruby had been there and done that and talked about being vilified afterwards.
His emotional analysis was compelling and Sir Anthony showed just what a good pundit he is too. If Ruby is my Gary Neville, AP is Graeme Souness when it comes to the bigger picture.
I loved how he described what Paul suffered happens to jockeys but when they’re back into the weighing room it’s the test of a sportsman to leave the incident behind them in there.
We then saw the fun side of AP which we get to enjoy every day when he sang Wild Rover in front of thousands of adoring fans in the Guinness Village afterwards. It was almost in tune.
Allaho’s win in the Ryanair was the perfect tonic for Paul even though there was the scare when they had a slight disagreement over when to take off at the last. What a clever, intelligent horse the winner is – along with possessing a Bentley engine – to get from A to B quickly and safely and avert disaster.
That Thursday hour is always one of my favourites with the Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle following hot on the hooves of the Ryanair and the winners’ enclosure turned into St Patrick’s Day bedlam with the scenes after Flooring Porter’s win.
It was Cheltenham at its best as we saw Danny Mullins being carried around on shoulders as the Flooring Porter Syndicate, who missed out on their big moment the year before, making amends in style with the celebrations of the week.
It was also a day when Charlotte Hawkins, Sir Anthony, Richard Hoiles and me appeared on This Morning alongside Philip Schofield. Holly Willoughby was absent because of Covid, but Holly Fillaby did her proud in the racing game we played on there – won by the most competitive man I’ve never met. No wonder he was a 20-time champion jockey.
This was a cross-promotion to help sell the Cheltenham Festival to a huge audience.
The final word
I’ve purposefully left the final word to the great Tiger Roll.
I took some criticism for saying he’d be a sad miss in the Randox Grand National, but a viewing figure 1.62m for a cross-country chase shows his popularity and what a marketing tool he has been for the sport – especially to the young.
Only Michael O’Leary could spoil his own party by winning it with a stablemate, but that didn’t stop Cheltenham giving Tiger Roll a send-off no other sporting venue could match. It was emotional and spinetingling.
Thanks for the memories Tiger.
MOST READ RACING
