Seven o’clock on Friday night and the phone rings. You see who’s trying to contact you and realise it’s a call even those of us on the absolute periphery of the great game dread receiving.
Galopin Des Champs is out of the Gold Cup. The story is published within three minutes and takes flight across the various social media platforms.
You feel for Willie Mullins and his team, Audrey and Greg Turley. And Galopin himself. Seven days out from the great race his realistic chance of a third Gold Cup triumph, the opportunity to become only the second horse in history to regain the crown, has gone.
Earlier in the afternoon I interviewed Joe Chambers, representative of Rich and Susannah Ricci.
Here are owners who know all about the ups and downs of the world of horse racing, the mindblowing highs right through to the gut-wrenching lows.
It is evident when I ask Joe to look back on their Festival history to date.
“The day Annie Power won the Champion Hurdle, as much because of what Willie, Ruby, Rich and the team went through the 12 months prior to that and then Faugheen got injured which added to Annie’s own story.
“That, purely from an emotional point of view, is up there. There’s the day Douvan tipped up in the Champion Chase with Patrick on him when Ruby broke his leg, because we still believe it was happening that day.
