Mate can follow snail's trail

13 April 2012

Tomorrow at 3.15, when the Cheltenham Festival reaches its climax, a horse called Best Mate seeks to break a 32-year hex. What is it that goes wrong when that good horse of yours, who used to give you no trouble, wins the Gold Cup?

One's the limit, these days, you see. Not since 1971, when L'Escargot completed the second leg of his back-to-back double, has any horse won more than one Gold Cup. It used to be quite the done thing: the great Arkle won three (1964-6), Cottage Rake the same number (1948-1950), Easter Hero two (1929-30) and Golden Miller a whopping five (1932-36).

But, in all my lifetime and more, the Snail's trail has not yet been followed. In that time, only 13 Gold Cup winners have even managed to turn up to defend their crown (including L'Escargot in 1972, when he finished fourth). Injury or worse, too, often intervened.

Of those returning titleholders, The Dikler in 1974 and Jodami in 1994 got closest, finishing runner-up. Even Desert Orchid managed only third in 1990.

So the stats are dead against Best Mate, even though he's 6-4 favourite. That's why, even though he was a fresh, exciting winner of last year's renewal, Ladbrokes went 8-1 a repeat immediately after he crossed the finishing line.

These pat arguments should be challenged. Properly examined, they may carry some merit as you weigh up other pros and cons, but each race and horse should be taken on its individual merits.

Is there any intrinsic reason why backto-back Gold Cups should be a thing of the past? Does the race ask so much that any winner is left vulnerable to injury or spent of his best form?

Noel Chance, the Lambourn trainer who saddled two such winners in the last seven years - Mr Mulligan (1997) and Looks Like Trouble (2000) - doesn't think so, even though both horses met with injury the next season.

"They were talented enough to win another - particularly Looks Like Trouble," said Chance. "But it takes phenomenal good luck to win a Gold Cup - you need so many things to go right to keep a runner safe and sound all season to the point of lining up for it, let alone to win the thing. To get that luck two years in a row . . . we got its very opposite."

Guessing where fortune might smile is of little use to punters. But there are perhaps three other factors that link L'Escargot and Best Mate: versatility, light campaigns and a robust physique.

"L'Escargot was fifth in the Champion Hurdle before winning his Gold Cups," observed his jockey, Tommy Carberry. "He also travelled to win in America. He tended only to have three runs each season before Cheltenham. Finally, he was a sound horse and stayed sound."

Best Mate has won over shorter trips, as a hurdler and chaser. He's never missed a race through a setback and trainer Henrietta Knight has shown single-minded forbearance this season in running him only twice. He had a hard race when winning the King George on Boxing Day, but has been given the 77 days since to recover.

Having been stupid enough not to take 8-1 about him 12 months ago, I backed Hussard Collonges at 33-1 and Valley Henry at 20-1 to beat him. I think I'm cooked. Quite simply, Knight has given Best Mate the best possible chance since L'Escargot of winning a second Gold Cup. I think he'll do it.

Rumour mill on a roll

Rumour will always be valued more than bare form in racing. When the two come together, it's magic. That happened when Back In Front won Cheltenham Festival's opening race yesterday, to a rapturous reception from the crowd's Irish contingent.

On Sunday, Richard Johnson revealed that Norman Williamson, rider of Back In Front and also Champion Hurdle hype horse Rhinestone Cowboy, would have stuck by the former had his two mounts clashed. Given the belief in the Cowboy, that was some statement.

You never know what politics lie behind such brave words, but Back In Front's trainer Edward O'Grady was certain his horse was better than the Cowboy. The 16-1 offered by Irish bookmakers Cashmans for Back In Front to win next year's Champion Hurdle looks generous.

But he'll have reigning champion Rooster Booster to beat. They said Johnson's mount was 'only a handicapper', that at nine he was 'too old' - a secondhand Ford Mondeo among shiny new Mercedes. But he ran away with the Champion by 11 lengths. That means the rest of the field, third-placed Cowboy included, were Robin Reliants.

Sea Pigeon won the first of his two Champion Hurdles aged 10 in 1980. Rooster's a stripling by comparison.

But on the eve of the 2004 Champion, I bet a talking horse, rather than this doing horse, will be on everyone's lips.

Keith's team just the job

It's the world's most prestigious National Hunt meeting yet, on its eve, eight experts couldn't agree what the going was and the Champion Hurdle was delayed because the tape used to start the race broke.

You have to laugh - unless you're Tony Dobbin, who feels his fellow jockeys' unruly behaviour at the start encouraged his mount, Hors La Loi III, to refuse to race. But one thing was working with clockwork-efficiency. When the second-hurdle got wrecked by a poor jump, chief fence-builder Keith Jones and his team had less than three minutes to repair it before it would also be needed as the final flight.

Our eyes were glued to Rhinestone Cowboy blundering his chance away round the rest of the track. We never knew what effort it took for Rooster Booster to jump the last in splendid isolation.

* Trainer Paul Nicholls won the race most expected of him yesterday with Azertyuiop's Arkle success. Back his Earthmover to win tomorrow's Foxhunter Chase against favourite Kingscliff. That rival, like Rhinestone Cowboy yesterday, is too short a price for an inexperienced horse. In the get-out stakes - the final race tomorrow - it has to be Native New Yorker and Jaboune against the field.

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