Our man at the track reacts to a dramatic Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup in which one door to racing greatness closed but...
It was on landing two fences from home in the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup that Gavin Cromwell and Mark Walsh knew Inothewayurthinkin had chasing’s blue riband within his grasp.
It was on landing two fences from home in the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup that Willie Mullins and Paul Townend knew history was slipping through their fingers.
Watching the race on a big screen in a sun-drenched parade ring the buzz throughout the contest was Galopin Des Champs was in trouble.
It wasn’t that Paul Townend was visibly concerned, but the horse wasn’t taking a cut at his fences. His jumping was slow and big, and you can tell how Galopin is going to perform by how he jumps. On the usual good day, he’s low and quick. And this, so far, wasn’t the usual good day.
You sensed the rider was three or four lengths further back than he wanted to be.
Out onto the second circuit and the fall of Ahoy Senor forces Rachael Blackmore to take evasive action on Monty's Star, Galopin is forced even wider. But there are flickers of a spark, he’s better at the next two.
Coming down the hill Banbridge is beaten. Townend has the favourite onto the heels of the leader. Now he's in front.
The crowd, scarred from the memories of Tuesday's Champion Hurdle, haven’t engaged full gear yet. Now they do. Into the straight, two to jump and Galopin Des Champs has a third Gold Cup right there waiting for him at the top of the hill. The chance to join compatriots Cottage Rake and Arkle among the pantheon of greats within touching distance.
In behind Inowthewayurthinkin is going equally as well. But we’ve been here before. This leader won’t be for catching. But on landing two out that changed. He was no longer the leader, and the new one had the momentum and was gone.
There’s a moment in sport when the atmosphere deflates. A late goal for an away team, the realisation that the moment the vast majority of people crammed into the auditorium came to see, isn’t about to be played out.
There are cheers to carry the JP McManus silks up the hill but not a patch on those that were being prepared moments earlier.
Mullins walks into the unsaddling area and for the first time this afternoon not into the winners’ spot. Four times in succession he’d visited it before this race. He’d have swapped them all to be going there this time.
But he talks, he always talks.
“I just thought he was never happy until they got to the fourth last. During the race he was too far out of his ground and he wasn’t jumping well enough to be in the race.
“I just think he used too much of his powder jumping too big, but a good horse won it.”
And then you remember a good horse did win it. He’s the story now.
A horse winning at his second successive Festival, supplemented for the race having not initially been entered. He was favourite for the Randox Grand National coming to Cheltenham. He's now as short as 5/2 and a widening nine pounds clear on Timeform’s weight-adjusted ratings.
He’s just slammed the door shut on a potentially legacy-defining moment for one rival. Now a different one has swung wide open to him.
Only Golden Miller has ever won the two biggest races on the National Hunt calendar in the same season. And that was in 1934.
“Listen, we'll all catch our breath, get the horse home and there's a conversation to be had. But you certainly can’t rule it out. It is tempting. It’s there, something to think about,” Cromwell admitted as both the day’s achievement and forthcoming dilemma began to sink in.
But we need to focus on the achievement itself.
“I watched it with my son Jake on the track. It was a nice feeling. I was never really confident that we had a right good chance until two out. It’s that type of the race but knowing he stays so well, once we got to that point and weren’t too far away, I knew we had a right good chance,” he added.
“To have a runner in the Gold Cup is fantastic, to win it is unbelievable. I’m so grateful to JP and Noreen for sending horses like this to me to train. I’m just delighted to be able to repay them by winning a Gold Cup.
“I thought everywhere in the race we looked to be flat out, just on the better ground and they went a very strong gallop, an end-to-end gallop which I knew, if he could stay in the race, and jump, it was going to suit him in the finish. I knew he’d stay very well.”
Mark Walsh is a man in a hurry as he sips a can of water in the post-race press conference. He knew earlier than the trainer that this might just be their day.
“I noticed early on Paul on the favourite wasn’t happy, his body language said he just wasn’t happy with how Galopin was jumping and I thought if I got a clear round I might just have a little squeak.
“I didn’t want to take him on too early because we all know how he stays up the hill but my lad just carried me there. I winged the second last and went by him and kept kicking because my lad stays all day too.”
Walsh now needs to wing it himself, a car is waiting to take him to the airport, but we have to ask the National question: “I’d love him to go but the welfare of the horse comes first and that decision will be left to JP and Gavin.”
And he’s off, back to Ireland, a Gold Cup winning-rider.
Then you hear of the fatal injury sustained by Corbetts Cross in the second McManus silks after a fall at the same second last fence, and your heart sinks.
It’s obviously not an easy decision for the Martinstown team to make regarding whether to roll the dice at Aintree. The heart will be desperate to give it a go, but the head will be ruled by how Inothewayurthinkin is over the next two-and-a-half weeks.
It’s a tight turnaround this year but great racing feats are never easily won. We found that out yet again at Cheltenham on Friday, the end of a week in which Constitution Hill, Jonbon and Galopin Des Champs were all beaten.
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