Iconic Festival Moments: Annie Power's final-flight fall
In the next in his series of iconic Cheltenham Festival moments, John Ingles looks back to the dramatic outcome to the 2015 Mares' Hurdle.
Willie Mullins and Ruby Walsh hold the records for the most wins by a trainer and jockey respectively at the Cheltenham Festival. Walsh, who was leading jockey at the meeting on 11 occasions, retired in 2019 having taken his Festival record to 59 when successful for the final time at Cheltenham on Klassical Dream in the Supreme Novices’ earlier that year.
Mullins, meanwhile, continues to churn out winners at the meeting, a record ten in March last year taking his total going into this year’s Festival to 88. The majority of Walsh’s Festival winners came in tandem with Mullins and the partnership enjoyed one of its best afternoons at Cheltenham on the opening day of the 2015 Festival. But their joint success that day would have been greater still but for one of the most dramatic outcomes to a Festival race in recent years.
The Mullins-Walsh partnership was as much feared by bookmakers as it was embraced by punters, particularly at Cheltenham, and results were very much going the way of the punters as the 2015 Festival’s early races unfolded. First up was Douvan who got the meeting off a perfect start for Mullins, Walsh and their supporters by running out an impressive winner of the Supreme as the well-backed 2/1 favourite. Next came Un de Sceaux who gave his backers little cause for concern when making all in the Arkle, he too impressive in landing odds of 4/6.
The highlight of the afternoon, though, came when Faugheen, under a well-judged ride by Walsh from the front, won the Champion Hurdle as the 4/5 favourite, leading home stable-companions Arctic Fire and former dual winner Hurricane Fly to maintain his unbeaten record.
Many of those with accumulators running up on a Mullins/Walsh four-timer must have felt that the hardest part was over by now. Whilst Annie Power hadn’t raced since Punchestown the previous spring, she looked head and shoulders above her 14 rivals on form in the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle which was being run as a Grade 1 for the first time. Her only defeat in 11 starts beforehand had come when second in the World (Stayers’) Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival the year before. Thanks to Quevega, Walsh and Mullins had dominated the Mares’ Hurdle, winning the previous six renewals.
At odds of 1/2, Annie Power was duly sent off at a shorter price than her stable’s three earlier winners and for much of the contest, as she travelled powerfully in touch, it looked only a matter of time before she was asked to go about winning her race. Having taken closer order three out, Walsh sent her into the lead jumping the next and she quickened clear on the run to the final flight, holding an advantage of seven or eight lengths over her nearest rival.
A mishap at the final obstacle, be it a hurdle or a fence, hasn’t significantly affected the result of too many races at the Festival, though Mullins had twice been denied winners in such circumstances in the past. There was Adamant Approach’s fall in the 2002 Supreme, when looking all over the winner at the final flight, which presented the race to Like-A-Butterfly, and Boston Bob’s departure at the final fence in the 2013 RSA Chase (won by Lord Windermere) when looking to have all his rivals in trouble.
On the other hand, Mullins has also more recently been the beneficiary of drama at the final obstacle, too, gaining an unlikely win with Burning Victory who was left in front in the 2020 Triumph Hurdle after clear leader Goshen unseated at the last.
But having looked in full control, Annie Power took off a stride too soon at the final flight, clipped the top and, despite desperately trying to stay upright, sprawled to the ground some way after the hurdle. That left a much closer finish than had looked likely to be fought out by Glens Melody, Polly Peachum and Bitofapuzzle, who were separated by just a head and a neck, with victory going to the Mullins second string, ridden by Paul Townsend, at odds of 6/1.
Annie Power’s fall had huge implications for the betting industry. One major bookmaker described the day as their worst ever at the Festival as it was, with Walsh’s three winners all having been well backed, though it would have been worse still if all ‘four horses of the apocalypse’, as bookmakers had dubbed the Mullins favourites, had won. Another claimed that their liabilities would have exceeded those when Frankie Dettori completed his ‘Magnificent Seven’ at Ascot in 1996 if Annie Power had won.
Walsh and Annie Power were unscathed in the fall, with no one more relieved than Rich Ricci in whose wife’s colours Annie Power ran. As well as Douvan and Faugheen, the Riccis had a third winner later in the week, Vautour, but Ricci said the best moment of the week for him had been seeing Annie Power get to her feet. There was some suggestion that she might have misjudged her take-off because of a shadow cast by the hurdle in front of the flight, though Walsh himself didn’t believe that was a factor.
Whatever the reason, it was the only significant jumping lapse in the career of Annie Power, an outstanding hurdler who was a notably slick jumper. She went on to win the four remaining starts of her career, in fact, and while there must have been many holding their breath as she and Walsh came to the last when clear again, this time in the Champion Hurdle, 12 months later, she took it safely before ending her career with her finest performance of all when sauntering 18 lengths clear of the Champion Hurdle runner-up My Tent Or Yours in the Aintree Hurdle.
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