Cheltenham Sunday reaction following dramatic end to November Meeting

The rate he is progressing up the training tree it would be worth buying a consignment of throat lozenges.

The half-length victory of his Harry Cobden-ridden 7/2 shot was a fitting finale to the Cheltenham three-day November Meeting, a heart on the sleeve front-running effort that inevitably had you cheering Burdett Road on, unless of course you had backed the supposed handicap good thing and ultimate third Dysart Enos.

But Owen had not irritated his throat shouting home Burdett Road. The husky voice was a result of urging home 50-1 runner-up Cavern Club in the handicap hurdle on Friday.

You can’t ignore anything this man trains.

In the last fortnight he has had winners on the Flat at all-weather tracks Chelmsford, Southwell and Wolverhampton as well as winning a novice hurdle at Sedgefield.

Burdett Road was Owen's second winner of the meeting following the success of East India Dock in Saturday’s Juvenile Hurdle.

It seems all horses come alike to Owen, who has sent out 54 winners on the Flat in 2024 from his Green Ridge Stables in Newmarket.

Burdett Road’s victory was the 32nd of the jumps season for the man who cut his teeth in the world Arabian horse racing in which he still dabbles.

It will come as no surprise that Owen was the British champion owner and trainer in that discipline this year and had a runner, albeit was unplaced, in the Qatar Arabian World Cup at Longchamp’s Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe meeting.

Before he stepped into the spotlight, Owen was a back-room boy, pre-training horses for Newmarket trainers like George Boughey, James Fanshawe, William Haggas and Sir Michael Stoute.

His ‘apprenticeship’ included being East Anglia’s champion point-to-point rider nine times, as well as working for Cheltenham Gold Cup-winning trainer Noel Chance and John Ferguson when he was handling some of Sheik Mohammed’s cast-offs over jumps.

It is an experience he is putting to good use and, largely due to the support of Bill and Tim Gredley, owners of Burdett Road, Owen is getting quality material to play.

He has certainly settled down Burdett Road, who was a bit of a tearaway as a juvenile hurdler.

Owen said: "He was good and I think he was idling in front. It was a competitive race and I think Dysart Enos is a very good filly.

"He is much better riding him like that. We learnt that on the Flat when he won the Listed Godolphin Stakes at Newmarket in September.

"We went hard on him that day and he did some strong fractions. I think we can go quicker with him. We have worked him out now. He is a strong stayer.

"He gets a lot of media attention which is great for me. I get carried along by it. We will go for a graded race now and see how he gets on."

Life will get tougher for Burdett Road, especially if he is thrown in against runners like Constitution Hill. But there is plenty of money on offer and not often that many runners in the races he will likely now contest.

For those of us getting a tad long in the tooth, it is easy to get overcome with nostalgia and come to the conclusion that the three-day Cheltenham November fixture isn’t what it used to be.

The unseasonal dry weather and its ramifications for the ground clearly had a detrimental effect on the horses, and how many of them turned up this weekend.

But it should not be forgotten that you have to go back to the 2012-13 season for a Cheltenham Festival to go by in March without a winner which had run at this meeting.

There is plenty of evidence that that record can be maintained.

The obvious candidates to maintain the record are Schloer Chase winner Jonbon, ante-post favourite for the Queen Mother Champion Chase, and Dan Skelton’s L’Eau Du Sud, easy winner of Paddy Power Arkle Trophy Trial Novices’ Chase.

After his victory in the two-and-a-half-mile mallardjewellers.com Novices’ Handicap Chase, Nicky Henderson’s Nico De Boinville-ridden Peaky Boy also deserves a provisional mention on that list, particularly the way his trainer talked about him.

"I was not happy for the first mile. I never felt he was travelling," Henderson said. "You get to know your boy’s body language quite well.

"But don’t forget he has only had two runs over hurdles – he is a big baby and he went the brave man’s route around the inside on probably the trickiest chase course in the country. There is a lot of inexperience in there.

"There is a lot more to come. We have not seen half of him. He could be a good horse."

Peaky Boy looks like he will stay three miles the way he finished and it would not be a surprise if he ended up in the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase, the race won by The Real Whacker, 2022 winner of today’s contest.

It is worth remembering that you don’t necessarily have to win at this meeting to score at the Festival.

So hope is retained in Springwell Bay, trained by AJ and Jonjo O’Neill. He was only third to Hyland in the three-mile novice chase on Friday but still ran creditably.

He was giving weight to his rivals, the race turned into a sprint and he hit the second-last fence hard.

He has Ultima Handicap Chase written all over him.

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