Cheltenham Saturday reflections: Freddie Gingell steals the show

It was a good day to be a Mullins at Cheltenham – but wasn’t it ever thus?

Willie was briefly in England on Saturday morning – jetting into Heathrow after a spot of winter sun in the Caribbean only to hop straight onto a connecting flight to Dublin.

By the time he kicked off the shoes, or flip flops, and lit the Closutton fire for the evening he could reflect on a job very well done.

Two runners at Prestbury Park, two winners. Capodanno was backed as if he was going to run a huge race in the Paddy Power Cotswold Chase and duly did, seeing daylight throughout and coming home clear of the rallying The Real Whacker.

But it’s Lossiemouth who we take home with us. The only issue she had in the Unibet Hurdle was the number crunchers finally deciding what weight she should carry. On the track it was wonderfully straightforward.

Hard on the bridle throughout, she sauntered to the front approaching the last to draw a yawning and widening nine lengths clear of Love Envoi, who chased home Honeysuckle in the Mares’ Hurdle at the Festival last season.

Rich and Susannah Ricci’s current flagbearer is now odds-on for this year’s renewal. She’s also in the Unibet Champion Hurdle. In any other hands she’d likely be heading there. But there’s near-neighbours State Man and Impaire Et Passe in her way right now– and that’s before we even get to Constitution Hill.

The owner’s racing manager Joe Chambers would only say “the Tuesday of Cheltenham” when asked where we’ll see her next. And the midweek rollercoaster over where Lossiemouth would actually run this weekend showed, even those who own the star mare are residents of Willieland. He’ll decide. And decide when he decides too.

And then Emmet entered stage left with his 2022 Grand National winner Noble Yeats. Aintree heroes are rarely party poopers but as the winter sun began to fade on a glorious January afternoon, this one was.

His name is now added to the McCoy Contractors Cleeve Hurdle roll of honour, but the remarkable Paisley Park went oh so close to forcing the engraver to mark him down for the fourth time.

It was a pulsating renewal with a host of horses having their chance going to the last. Noble Yeats was in front soon after and under a Harry Cobden drive stayed there. But only by a head as the runner-up, outpaced on the turn for home, gathered momentum up the hill. They urged him home from the stands and stride-by-stride he was getting to his rival. But he needed three more and the winning post refused to move.

Cobden had earlier struck on Ginny's Destiny in the Timeform Novices’ Handicap Chase for his retainer Paul Nicholls. The handler was left with much to ponder afterwards. Not where the winner heads next, refreshingly. That’s the Turners and a clash with the Ricci/Mullins behemoth Gaelic Warrior.

No, it was the momentum Cobden now has in the jockeys’ title race (“it will go down to the wire”) and his own defence of the trainers’ crown (“so will that”) that he perused as he prepared to accept the latest gong for the trophy cabinet.

Nicky Henderson had a mixed day. Sir Gino was brilliant in beating Burdett Road in the JCB Triumph Hurdle Trial. He’s now short for the March showpiece itself and exciting. The trainer was reminiscing about his own record in the race afterwards and when it was pointed out his three-time Champion Hurdle winner See You Then was beaten in the four-year-old championship he recalled: “Yes -– but I’d only had him for ten days.”

Jonbon has been at Seven Barrows a good while longer and the rearranged My Pension Expert Clarence House Chase looked a penalty kick beforehand for the 1/4 favourite.

But didn’t your old dad always tell you there’s no such thing as a certainty in racing? Not one who jumped like this anyway. The trainer could only really point to one significant mistake when talking to Oli Bell afterwards, the shuddering error four out that looked to have ended his race there and then.

Yes that was the worst, but there were others, smaller, momentum sapping ones. The one at the last, after he’d still somehow found his way to the front, finally sealed his fate.

But in the end this wasn’t a race about Jonbon, it was a tale of cheers and tears.

The cheers rang out to welcome back Freddie Gingell on his first Grade One winner, Elixir De Nutz..

Nicholls has taken the young rider under his wing – and inside the Ditcheat team – and offered a beaming smile and outstretched hand as the young prodigy returned in triumph.

But this was a family success – the winner trained by Gingell’s uncle Joe Tizzard, also registering a maiden top-flight success.

The rider stood up in the irons and roared as he entered the hallowed winners’ enclosure as thoughts turned to his mum, Kim, Tizzard’s sister, who died of cancer aged only 43 in May 2020.

“That was the most emotional success I’ve had. Mum was definitely up there looking down on me today. She has been a massive part of me in helping me to become a jockey,” Gingell said.

Tizzard briefly had to pause a post-race interview to collect himself before adding: “Freddie is 18 years old and he has got it all in front of him. He is the right size, and he is very good over a fence. Days like this don’t phase him and he can take it. I’m biased, but he has done me proud.

“The big days don’t phase him, but I need to wake him up for a Monday or Tuesday at Plumpton and places, but on the big day he doesn’t panic and he proved that today. I’m chuffed to bits for Fred as he gets a real good tune out of that horse.

“Kim would be so proud and that is what she put into Freddie to make him the man that he is.”

A special moment on a fascinating afternoon. And as the red brake lights start their crawl to the car park exits, you sense the big guns are starting to shuffle their March packs. Henderson’s Champion Chase hand was weakened but his Triumph one suddenly looks a whole heap stronger.

Nicholls has one for the Turners and a spring in his step and Mullins? Well he has decisions to make from an enviable and unparalleled position of strength.

Oh and next week it’s the Dublin Racing Festival. For a jumps season that at times has lacked sparkle and momentum, the good times finally feel just around the corner. So, at last, is February.

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