Punters should be aware that these trainers and jockeys have endured years of frustration at Cheltenham’s big race-meeting
As any punter knows, success at the Cheltenham Festival never comes easy. For trainers and jockeys, any victory there is a career highlight, representing a moment when you beat your entire profession to a prize they all wanted.
On the other hand, if you stick at it long enough, you’re bound to get lucky eventually. There are 26 races at the Festival these days and they can’t all be won by champions. Trainers as unsung as Wilf Storey, jockeys as obscure as Gary Crone (7) have found their way into the winners’ enclosure in the not-too-distant past. If they can do it, you can too.
Well, maybe not. For a select handful, years of endeavour have brought nothing but frustration. It hardly seems fair to name them because the odds are that they haven’t done much wrong. Still, I’m going to, just because you won’t read about it anywhere else. The racing media is generally keen on celebrating success, while drawing a veil over the other thing, but punters should know the whole truth. I’d be peeved at the least if, after backing a short-priced loser in the County Hurdle, I discovered it was the trainer’s 30th consecutive loser at the meeting.
That said, knowing this kind of thing is no sure route to punting success. On the eve of the 2008 Festival, I had a look at Tom Scudamore’s record and found that he hadn’t ridden a winner over fences at Cheltenham since he was a 5lb claimer more than eight years and 61 rides before. His mount in the William Hill Trophy, An Accordion, was due to start favourite or thereabouts but Scu’s decade of futility suggested to me that it was terrible value. I doubled my bet on some other yak and watched as An Accordion was driven up the hill to victory.
Now that I have been so graceless as to draw attention to their struggles, expect this fivesome to dominate the headlines in March.
5) Nicky Richards
He hasn’t had quite the quality of horse that was enjoyed by his father, Gordon, who trained One Man and Unguided Missile to win at the 1998 Festival, but Nicky Richards has had plenty of good ones. If it wasn’t for the head by which Penzance held off Faasel in the Triumph Hurdle, he would have taken himself off this list five years ago. Monet’s Garden was beaten only by Voy Por Ustedes in the 2006 Arkle, though in light of his status as 7-4 favourite the grey’s fourth in the following year’s Ryanair was a disappointment. Turpin Green had also underperformed when 5-1 for the 2006 Jewson, ruining his chance with mistakes.
Richards’s Festival runners are much more likely to start at double-figure odds, when they can offer each-way value. According To John was third at 66-1 in Denman’s RSA Chase, while Turpin Green (40-1) was third to Kauto Star in the Gold Cup two days later. For those who saw the portents, Premier Dane made the frame in the last race of that Festival, the County Hurdle, at 100-1.
It is hard for northern trainers to compete in the south but Ferdy Murphy and Sue Smith have had their Festival moments and Richards must be anxious to emulate them before his losing sequence gets much longer than the present 28.
4) Twist Magic
You were probably expecting this list to be full of jockeys and trainers but I think it’s important to make an exception in this case because Twist Magic is second-favourite for the Champion Chase, behind only his stablemate, Master Minded. He is a shorter price with most firms than Forpadydeplasterer, who has won a championship race at the Festival.
Twist Magic has never come close to doing that and he’s had three attempts. For the past two years, he has been beaten out of sight in the Champion Chase, taking a tired fall two-out last year. He was also a faller in the Arkle Trophy of 2007 – and yes, I know he was in contention until being caught out by the tricky second-last on that occasion, but the form hasn’t exactly worked out. He might have won, or he might have finished behind My Way De Solzen, Fair Along and Jack The Giant.
Tomorrow, Twist Magic may very well add the Victor Chandler to his impressive success in last month’s Tingle Creek, at which point he would become most people’s idea of the main challenger to Master Minded. Punters should remember that he was ante-post favourite for the 2008 Champion Chase after routing Voy Por Ustedes in that season’s Tingle Creek, but he finished 30 lengths behind that same rival at Cheltenham.
There are still some who are prepared to view his Festival flops in a sympathetic light. They say he was out of form at the time and he’s a different horse now, but shoring up such beliefs looks like hard work to me. All the evidence suggests that Twist Magic is one of those horses that just doesn’t like the place.
3) Ian Williams
What a good horse Weird Al seems. Twice a winner at Cheltenham this season, he showed great courage in his November success and will deserve consideration if he lines up for the RSA Chase, but punters should also take into account that his trainer has struck out with all 33 previous runners at the meeting.
As with Nicky Richards, Williams has had only one really fancied runner. Brewster, the 9-4 favourite for the three-mile novice hurdle in 2005, ran respectably to be third behind Moulin Riche and Over The Creek. It may have been harder for the trainer to stomach the eventual defeat of At Your Request, a 33-1 shot who nevertheless led over the second-last in the Fred Winter that same year before being swamped by Dabiroun and Nina Carberry.
At least Williams’s hopes would never have been unduly excited by the plodding-on effort of Bambi De L’Orme, runner-up behind Fota Island in the Grand Annual, also in 2005. A distant third place for the 100-1 shot Winston Run, in the Royal & SunAlliance Novice Hurdle of 1999, may have felt almost like victory for a trainer who was just getting going at the time.
Three-quarters of Williams’s Festival runners have started at 33-1 or bigger but it has not usually paid to look for each-way value from this yard. All but four of his 33 failed to make the places.
2) Christian Williams
This Williams is enjoying his second stint as second jockey to Paul Nicholls. It is the kind of job that brings a mix of satisfaction and frustration – there will be plenty of winners at places such as Taunton and even the chance to land major prizes if Ruby is wanted elsewhere. But when the Festival rolls around, many of your mounts are going to be second-stringers, plainly inferior to at least one horse in the race.
That must be a large part of the reason why Williams has not yet made the frame at the Festival. He came closest in one of his earliest attempts, when fourth on Earthmover in the 2003 Foxhunters, and he has since been fourth in two Gold Cups, on Royal Auclair and Neptune Collonges.
Williams’s losing run has reached 32. In the circumstances, it must have been hard for him to take when Exmoor Ranger fell three-out in last year’s Jewson, having been on the heels of the leaders. Given the finishing effort that Chapoturgeon produced, it is hard to imagine that Williams would have broken his duck in any case, but he would surely have finished in the money.
He may not care as much as I imagine. Having spent a fortnight in intensive care after a nerve-severing shoulder injury some years ago, he may simply be delighted to be back in the saddle, viewing every winner as a bonus. But such an equable approach would, by all accounts, be quite out of place in the weighing room and my guess is that it will be an enormous relief to Williams if he can cross that line in front at some point in March. Here’s hoping that one of his mounts is up to the task.
1) Charlie Mann
It would have been hard to believe, watching Merchants Friend jump the last in the Kim Muir, that Mann would still be looking for his first Festival winner six years later. But such, alas, is the case, as Merchants Friend ran out of puff so completely that he gave up a 12-length lead on the run-in and was collared close home by Maximize, a 40-1 shot. “With 50 yards to go, I thought we had it,” said the trainer, who was again made to suffer in last year’s Grand Annual, in which his Moon Over Miami was beaten less than a length by Oh Crick.
Mann was also runner-up when Air Force One chased home Wichita Lineman in the three-mile staying hurdle, while his Mobaasher was third in Katchit’s Triumph Hurdle on the same day. Both started at big prices, but then Mann’s horses have hardly ever been among the market-leaders. Air Force One was 6-1 for the RSA Chase in 2008 and ought to have been placed, judging by previous form with the first and third, but made too many mistakes. My Turn Now, a 15-2 shot for a novice hurdle in 2007, was sixth, which may have disappointed the trainer after the horse had won five of his previous six.
The Raceform Interactive database I use goes back to 1999, since when Mann has had 36 Festival losers. He had a handful before then, including Celibate, third in Or Royal’s Arkle. His is not a yard that has had frequent association with big-race glory but so many useful horses have passed through it that his situation is surprising. One day, surely, he will get to make that long walk towards the cheering crowds that so many others have made before.
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