The sounds of British racing with a renewed pep in its step might be a hard listen to some Hibernian ears but with just over six weeks to the Cheltenham Festival it is an overwhelmingly good thing for the National Hunt game.
Of course, it isn’t the entire cross-channel sector that’s feeling revived, so much as Nicky Henderson. The veteran Englishman is almost single-handedly leading the counter-offensive against Irish domination.
Still, since Ireland’s unprecedented ascendancy over the last decade has been built on the foundation stone of Willie Mullins it’s hardly unique to see one individual’s success so enthusiastically slipstreamed.
Considering how his 2024 festival was decimated by a rogue bug, Henderson’s restoration to serious player status is remarkable. It means he goes into tomorrow’s Trials Day with plenty of his compatriots starting to feel their oats again.
That he has got Constitution Hill back from apparent busted flush to being odds-on to regain his Champion Hurdle crown has been a singularly impressive accomplishment.
But Constitution Hill’s Christmas Hurdle defeat of Lossiemouth a month ago was quickly followed by Sir Gino’s rout of another Mullins star in Ballyburn. Jonbon’s eclipse of Energumene last weekend was preceded by Lulamba cementing his place as Triumph Hurdle favourite.
All of it means Henderson currently has four of the six shortest priced ante-post festival favourites. Not so long ago such a state-of-affairs would have been a big long shot.
Irish-trained horses won 18 races at last year’s festival, double the British tally. For the home team though that was regarded as a relatively decent outcome considering the humiliating 23-5 rout just three years previously.
Mullins’s own nine victories propelled him past a century of festival winners and ultimately to the British trainers’ championship, the first by an Irish person in 70 years.
All of it prompted the then British Horseracing Authority chief executive Julie Harrington to warn about how Irish dominance threatened to become even “more damaging for the sport on both sides of the Irish Sea”.
To some such a statement simultaneously smacked of both sour grapes and gratifying proof that any amorphous Team Ireland concept was living rent free in cross-channel heads. History alone can make that quite an appealing cocktail. But Harrington was correct.
Jump racing’s confines make the sport on either side of the Irish Sea two sides of the one coin. They are inextricably linked. Each feeds the other. France is an annex, watching with amusement and profitably supplying everyone their raw material.
The last decade has been new territory for all concerned. The power of the Mullins team has been backed up by Gordon Elliott and Henry De Bromhead, transforming a scenario that for so long had Ireland as the plucky underdog punching up at the old power on its own turf.
Those roles have been comprehensively reversed. It has been as transformative a reversal as seen in any major sport in modern times. Memories of 1989, when there wasn’t a single Irish winner at Cheltenham, are sepia-tinted relics of a long-gone era.
But just as such a skewed balance of power was unhealthy then, so it is now. As abstract and often fanciful a construct as it is to pin national sentiment to an essentially individual sport, there is no ignoring the depth of feeling that exists on either side when it is coming off worst.
And while no one’s shouting it from the rooftops, there has conversely been a growing ‘ho-hum’ element to Irish dominance. Proof came when so many voted with their feet by not bothering to attend last year’s festival. There were other elements to do with that, but the flag-waving factor was in there. Any one-sided match has limited appeal.
Henderson’s run of form is a significant boost then, albeit few are in doubt about where the balance of power still lies. Mullins remains a heavy odds-on favourite to be the festival’s top trainer again. But at least his English rival is next best in the betting.
There is a broader context too where Henderson is backed up by other leading cross-channel yards. Dan Skelton’s remorseless upwardly mobile profile continues apace. Almost half the market leaders for Cheltenham’s top-flight contests are based in Britain. And there is a pervasive view that handicaps may have been somewhat skewed away from Irish hopes.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence then that there’s a bellicosity to the current Ryanair ad encouraging punters to fly with them to Birmingham and Bristol in March. It urges everyone to watch Ireland “smash the English” at Cheltenham. The pitch is as subtle as Michael O’Leary’s messages usually are. But at the very least it smacks of a rivalry slowly being reinvigorated.
Jump racing’s dry January always comes before the blowout rather than after. There are relatively meagre pickings this month in terms of top-class competitive action. But how Henderson and his colleagues maintain their momentum towards March is going to be both fascinating and important to the Cheltenham Festival’s overall wellbeing.
Something for the Weekend
A welcome double for Venetia Williams earlier this week suggests a stable coming out of a form dip so L’HOMME PRESSE (2.25) looks the one to beat in tomorrow’s Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham. Gentlemansgame’s a danger but the Williams star is 12lbs well-in on official figures with him.
The Mullins and De Bromhead team’s have fancied hopes for a Fairyhouse maiden hurdle tomorrow, which could make WILLIAM MUNNY (2.13) an attractive price. The smart Workahead got away from him at Leopardstown over Christmas, but that experience should stand to him.
