Proof that racing’s only certainty is its uncertainty came in presumption-bursting style at Cheltenham on Wednesday when circumstances conspired to make Captain Guinness steeplechasing’s unlikely two-mile champion.
A Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase teed up to deliver Willie Mullins his historic century of festival winners through his outstanding 2-9 favourite. El Fabiolo instead delivered one of the great upsets of modern times.
El Fabiolo’s propensity to blunder hadn’t previously derailed him in six unbeaten starts over fences but it cost him with a vengeance at the fifth fence, the horse somehow getting to the other side but quickly pulled up by a prudent Paul Townend.
Mullins’s star was so short in the betting after his old rival Jonbon was taken out in the morning due to the dire form of some of Nicky Henderson’s runners. It left Edwardstone as most people’s idea of a token threat to the favourite, except fate wound up punishing any predictive temerity.
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Edwardstone was beaten when coming down at the second last and Captain Guinness finally secured an elusive Grade One success in the most valuable two-mile race of all, preserving enough of his suspect stamina up the final hill to score at 17-2 and complete Rachael Blackmore’s Cheltenham festival Triple Crown.
Even then, Mullins’s outsider Gentleman de Mee briefly threatened to deliver the 100. Captain Guinness was running on fumes in the final 100 metres but he had a length and a half in hand at the line.
Having won a pair of Champion Hurdles on Honeysuckle, and the Gold Cup on A Plus Tard, Blackmore looked as surprised as everyone else that she had secured the third jewel in the festival’s crown on a horse that had failed to win in 13 previous Grade One attempts.
“I knew El Fabiolo was out of the equation but there was still quite a long way to go. It does change your brain a little bit, but you are still just trying to ride from fence to fence,” she said. “He’s an incredible horse and just fantastic. I’m not shocked, because I thought his day would come - but at the same time I can’t believe it came today” she added.
Finishing a distant runner up to Energuemene in the 2023 Queen Mother had previously looked to be fine piece of placing by Henry de Bromhead only for the horse to go one better and pick up the various pieces when least expected.
It was a fourth win in the race for the Co Waterford trainer who famously picked up the festival Triple Crown in a single week at the Covid-hit 2021 meeting when Put The Kettle On scored in the Champion Chase under Aidan Coleman.
“He’s had a tricky season - at Christmas he had his atrial fibrillation. Anyway, all that was fine, he passed all his tests, and it’s great to see him back. We’ve always said he deserved to win a Grade One so much, and to win this is incredible,” he said.
El Fabiolo’s jumping had worried Mullins before his shuddering blunder although the fence before he’d jumped well. “I thought ‘Ok, he’s warmed up now, he’s going to go,’ and then he stood too far off and didn’t get any height,” said Mullins who said the horse appeared unscathed.
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