Tony McFadden looks forward to Energumene's potential return on Sunday and highlights the dual Champion Chase winner's achievements.
Cork hosts its premier raceday on Sunday and there's likely to be a suitable headline act as Timeform's highest-rated horse in training, Energumene, is set to make his comeback in the Hilly Way Chase, a contest he won in 2021 and 2022 before also landing the Champion Chase at Cheltenham and Punchestown later in those campaigns.
Energumene missed all of last season, depriving him of his first and probably best chance to join Badsworth Boy as a three-time Champion Chase winner given history suggests that he will be up against it as an 11-year-old this time around. Moscow Flyer is the only horse aged older than ten who has won the Champion Chase since Skymas scored as a 12-year-old in 1977, but even if time starts to catch up with Energumene, and he falls short at Cheltenham, he should be remembered as a horse who reached rare heights.
2.15 Cork, Sunday - Bar One Racing Hilly Way Chase (Grade 2)
A rating of 165 is the benchmark for top-class form on Timeform's scale. Energumene is rated more than a stone higher than that, with his figure of 180 marking him out as an outstanding performer. Only 16 horses this century have achieved a Timeform rating in excess of 180, with just six of those being two-milers.
He also takes high ranks among Willie Mullins' top-rated horses, with only Douvan (182) and Galopin des Champs (181) having achieved a loftier rating. Beyond the figures, he is surely a yard favourite at Closutton having provided his trainer with his first Champion Chase success, completing a clean sweep of the Festival's feature prizes.
Energumene's peak rating actually comes from his brave effort in defeat behind Shishkin in a superb edition of the Clarence House Chase, which is a tad ironic as he has been a winning machine.
Energumene has won ten of his 12 starts over fences, including six of his eight attempts in Grade 1 company. Of those rated higher than him, only Sprinter Sacre and Kauto Star, two undisputable modern greats, won more from their first eight Grade 1s over fences (Altior also did, though he was rated the same as Energumene).
Sunday's Grade 2 should give a guide as to whether there's likely to be further top-level success from Energumene, but, whatever happens, he's already proved himself a champion.
Three stars who memorably came back
Brave Inca
The emergence of Brighterdaysahead, Lossiemouth and Sir Gino, allied with obvious doubts around whether Constitution Hill can recapture his brilliant best, mean that the two-mile division, which also includes last season's champion State Man, is the most competitive and exciting it has been for many a year. It is perhaps at its most interesting since the mid-2000s when top-class Irish hurdlers Brave Inca, Hardy Eustace, Harchibald and Macs Joy repeatedly did battle without a pecking order ever being comprehensively established.
The teak-tough Brave Inca won ten Grade 1s during his lengthy career, a feat made all the more impressive given the strength in depth in the division as well as a missed campaign in 2007/08.
Returning to the track at ten rising 11 - just as Energumene will be doing albeit with far fewer miles on the clock - Brave Inca showed he retained enough ability to prove competitive at the top level with placed efforts in the Hatton's Grace and December Festival Hurdle before gaining his final Grade 1 victory with a typically brave display in the 2009 Irish Champion Hurdle.
Faugheen
Faugheen took his record under Rules to 12 wins from 13 starts with one of the great hurdling performances of the modern era in the 2016 Irish Champion, earning a Timeform rating of 176 which is only 4 lb lower than the mighty Istabraq's peak figure and 1 lb lower than Constitution Hill's current rating.
He missed all of the 2016/17 campaign and his subsequent strike rate shows he wasn't quite the force of old, but he retained enough ability to win a further four Grade 1s, including a couple over fences in a glorious closing chapter.
Rarely has a horse received a reception like the one reserved for a 12-year-old Faugheen following his victory in the Flogas Novice Chase at the Dublin Racing Festival, where he returned to a hero's welcome in a mobbed Leopardstown winner's enclosure.
A well deserved hero’s welcome for the 12 year old superstar 🤩
— Leopardstown RC (@LeopardstownRC) February 2, 2020
⭐️ FAUGHEEN ⭐️ #DublinRacingFestival pic.twitter.com/7IzFo6HboE
Sprinter Sacre
In Timeform's view no jumps horse since the days of Arkle and Flyingbolt has put up a better performance than the one Sprinter Sacre produced to win his first Champion Chase.
Sprinter Sacre had already established himself as a top-class chaser with seven successive wins over fences, but he raised his game to another level at the 2013 Cheltenham Festival where he slammed a former winner of the race, Sizing Europe, by 19 lengths.
Remarkably, that is not the performance most closely associated with Sprinter Sacre who suffered an irregular heartbeat when pulled-up in the 2013 Desert Orchid Chase, failed to win in three starts during the 2014/15 campaign yet roared back to win all four starts the following season including a second Champion Chase.
The bare form was a long way shy of what he achieved when putting up the best jumps performance of the modern era, but it was still a superb achievement for him to regain his title after his future had been in such doubt.
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