‘It may well be that true riches are laid up in heaven,’ declared the blues composer W.C. Handy, ‘but it’s sure nice to have a little pocket money on the way there.’ A good turnout can therefore always be relied upon for Newbury’s £155,000 William Hill Hurdle which last Saturday carried a prize of £87,218 for the winning horse.
The richest handicap hurdle in Britain has been one of my favourite races since its inception as the Schweppes Gold Trophy (under other sponsors it has also been run as the Tote Gold Trophy and the Betfair Hurdle). I never attend without seeing in my mind’s eye the tilted trilby figure of the ex-commando Captain Ryan Price, who won the race four times in its first five years.
After Rosyth won his second successive Schweppes in 1964 the stewards removed Price’s trainer’s licence and suspended his jockey Josh Gifford for six weeks, citing ‘abnormal improvement’ from its previous run. Rosyth had come to Price with jarred up shoulders which he eased by towing the swimming horse behind a rowboat off Selsey Bill. The horse was too a ‘bleeder’, prone to breaking blood vessels. He had to be nursed along to fitness gradually, never winning a race in midwinter, and yet when he reversed the form with Salmon Spray by 7lb from the previous race in which they had both run that was deemed evidence sufficient to remove Price’s livelihood. The logic of that would have been that any trainer winning a race with a horse carrying a 7lb penalty was up to no good.
Other trainers too have successfully targeted the race. Nobody knows better how to bring a horse to a peak at the right time than Lambourn’s Nicky Henderson, who has collected nine Champion Hurdles to prove it – and when the grey mare Joyeuse blitzed her field to win Saturday’s contest in the hands of Nico de Boinville, it was Nicky’s seventh victory. (He won it last year too with Iberico Lord, then one of this column’s Twelve to Follow.)
The richest handicap hurdle inBritain has been one of my favourite races since its inception
‘It’s a great race. It’s local and we’ve followed it all these years,’ said Nicky, with a nod to the wily Captain’s memory. ‘She was in the perfect position the whole way: she was always travelling and jumping. It all seemed very straightforward.’
But for those who were mentally combing through next month’s Cheltenham Festival handicap programme to see where to invest a little ante-post on Joyeuse, he had bad news. ‘She cannot come into a Cheltenham handicap. She’s had only four runs over hurdles and you have to have five to come into a handicap.’ Ironically Joyeuse’s owner J.P. McManus was one of those supporting this year’s rule change imposing that restriction.
Most at Newbury would have reckoned Nicky Henderson deserved the consolation of winning the feature race, because many had booked in expectation of seeing his Sir Gino contest the William Hill Game Spirit Chase to conclude his Cheltenham preparation for the Arkle Chase. We all wanted to see the star novice chaser, who had to miss the race because of a cut sustained two days before, and Nicky had very much wanted to run him. ‘The race was ideal. He needed a good rock and roll over fences,’ said the Seven Barrows trainer, who was at that point debating whether he could find another racing opportunity for Sir Gino before his big day at Cheltenham.
But no sooner had I written a draft of this column wondering if Sir Gino could join previous Henderson-trained winners of the Arkle such as Sprinter Sacre, Altior and Shishkin after just one run over fences (they had all had at least three before running in the Cheltenham contest) than news came that his injury was worse than first thought. Sir Gino was in the equine hospital and wouldn’t run again this season.
Poor Nicky must be wondering what he has done to irritate the racing gods. Over the years he’s trained 73 Cheltenham Festival winners, with at least one every year since 2008 – but last year he was hit by a mystery condition affecting the Seven Barrows runners and ended the meeting potless. Five out of six of his runners on the first day were pulled up. Champion Hurdler Constitution Hill was too sick to defend his crown and most of Nicky’s potential champions were withdrawn, including his Gold Cup hope Shishkin and Sir Gino, that year favourite for the Triumph Hurdle.
Like Shishkin, who died after breaking his leg in a stable accident, Sir Gino runs in the black and yellow checks of Joe and Marie Donnelly. At Seven Barrows the keen anticipation that takes over in the run-up to the Festival must now be accompanied by a fear that some kind of hoodoo is still hovering. With the accident-prone Constitution Hill favourite to regain his Champion Hurdle title, Jonbon the favourite for the Champion Chase and Lulamba top of the betting for the Triumph Hurdle, these will be nervous times.
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