Our columnist continues his Cheltenham Festival build-up with his take on the supposed turning of the tide in British jumps racing.
To everything, turn, turn turn
We’re all Turning the Corner, these days.
Sir Starmer is adamant that Britain is firmly in TTC mode, so much so that a recent edition of Newsnight concluded with a splendid supercut of him repeating the phrase like some peripatetic Prime Ministerial parrot.
Patrick delivered a similar message as he addressed the slightly hit-and miss form of the Mullins team, suggesting that “we’ve got them in the bootcamp, and I think they’ll start to turn the corner” after Quiryn had made an impressive Naas debut.
And a confident core of UK trainers seem to think the Brits are turning the Cheltenham Festival corner and closing a longstanding Prestbury Cup gap on their Irish counterparts.
Ben Pauling worries that fans find the sight of horses from one yard dominating the Festival “a little bit tedious” and thinks a new wave of British handlers “can give it one almighty kick," while Nicky Henderson adds "we’ve got a lot of very good horses over here" and Paul Nicholls feels momentum “might be starting to swing back towards us."
And then we come to the ever-quotable Dan Skelton, who has been giving it an almighty kick all season and insists that "we are putting numbers up against the Irish... and we have been putting that pressure on for four or five years."
Now this is all punchy stuff, and a smashing tonic for the troops as we approach Cheltenham’s 50-day milestone, but is this new-found optimism backed up by meaningful evidence?
Err, well, not really.
True, things could only get better after that behind-closed-doors debacle in 2021 when Shishkin, Vintage Clouds, Sky Pirate, Chantry House and Porlock Bay were the sole home-trained winners in a 23-5 shellacking.
A couple of 18-10s and an 18-9 with no cross-country chase followed, but last year brought a 20-8 thumping and the key metrics from dynamic Dan’s five-year sample make for sobering reading.
Nobody puts Willie in the corner
The combined score was 97-42 in favour of the Irish during a quinquennium when Willie won more than a quarter (37) of all Festival races.
Britain won just a fifth of Festival G1s during that period and, unless my adding up is awry, the depth of dominance can be illustrated by the fact that the green machine supplied the first two 30 times, the first three 16 times and the first four on a remarkable 21 occasions.
But hang on a minute.
Irish horses haven’t been cleaning up in Britain’s best races this winter and you don’t need to be a certified flag-shagger to detect a few red, white and blue shoots of UK recovery.
Current markets suggest that Sir Gino, The New Lion and Golden Ace - and maybe even the cement-footed former champ if his fanciful Flat frolic fizzles out – make Britain 4-6 or shorter to win the Champion Hurdle.
Jango Baie, The Jukebox Man, Grey Dawning and Haiti Couleurs make the home team around 6-4 to keep the Gold Cup at home for the first time since Native River drew the sting from Might Bite in 2018.
And then we have the nascent novices.
Old Park Star and Lulamba for Nicky in the Supreme and Arkle; No Drama This End for Paul in the Turners; and don’t forget a host of hardy handicappers seeking to emulate the dear departed Langer Dan.
But who are we kidding?
Yes, the Brits have fronted up very well in Festival handicaps of late - winning 19 to Ireland’s 20 since 2022 by my reckoning - but man cannot land a Prestbury Cup on randomness alone and Nicky and Dan are humping an increasingly heavy load in Festival G1s nowadays.
In the end, it’s all about turning the corner.
Sir Starmer’s dream of progress is being checked by screeching U-turns and Willie’s bootcamp boys and girls still have some DRF driving to do before they take the winding road to Cheltenham.
We’ll know soon enough whether British jumping is back on track.
A strong rally would add a lot to the occasion and, whatever the final score, securing the Champion/Gold Cup double for the first time since Rock On Ruby and Synchronised scored in 2012 would feel like a momentous fork in the road.
But we’ve been here before with misplaced map-reading.
The steering wheel is in the hands of a select band who get their best horses to turn a corner and step on the gas when it matters most – and recent years suggest the Irish lads are still streets ahead of all bar a couple of their UK peers in that department.
Recommendation: Ireland to win the Prestbury Cup 17-11 or 18-10
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