After Ethical Diamond’s success in last Saturday night’s $5 million Breeders’ Cup Turf in Del Mar Willie Mullins was asked if he had any more hurdlers that might get shifted to flat racing. “We have a few,” replied National Hunt racing’s dominant trainer. “But I can’t tell you!”
Mullins was so obviously thrilled with how his first Breeders’ Cup runner upset flat racing’s aristocracy that it underlined just how unlikely the result seemed to him as much as anyone else.
Avoiding being tailed off and turned into “a holy show” had been his meagre pre-race ambition. Or maybe finish fifth at best. But the horse who’d run 14 times, half of them in hurdle races, and with only a single win in them, turned flat racing’s global pecking order upside down.
There was shock at home, but it paled in comparison to US incredulity. Ethical Diamond had been running in handicaps and had never competed in a Group race before. But it was the jumping factor that really astonished the locals.
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Even on this side of the pond, there can still be a note of condescension towards National Hunt racing. That’s despite the jumps game being just as high-profile and perhaps even more popular compared to the flat.
Go most everywhere else in the racing world though, and jumping is viewed as little more than a gimmick, a rustic pursuit for slow horses not worth persevering with in the real thing. But just a few days after Ethical Diamond, and on the other side of the globe, came more evidence of how misplaced such haughtiness can be.
Goodie Two Shoes couldn’t win in three starts over fences last winter. Before that, she won once in four races over hurdles. But in the early hours of Tuesday morning, JP McManus’s mare finished runner-up in the Melbourne Cup.
Both races were a notable demonstration of the raw talent competing in jumps races. Neither Ethical Diamond nor Goodie Two Shoes is a star of the winter game. But here they were at the business end of two of the most valuable and prestigious races in the world. Any patronising bumpkin stereotypes were made to look spectacularly off the mark.
They’ve always been off target to some extent, but Ethical Diamond’s success in particular illustrated how elitist assumptions need to be recalibrated.
There’s a long history of horses moving from the flat to the jumps. The triple-Champion Hurdle winner Istabraq was bred to win the Derby but was never rated higher than a modest 84 on the flat. Faced with hurdles, he transformed into a triple-Champion Hurdle winner.
In contrast, Royal Gait was a top-flight stayer, blackguarded out of an Ascot Gold Cup by a travesty of a stewards’ decision, who then won a Champion Hurdle in 1992. The 1961 St Leger hero, Aurelius, even wound up over fences after a failed stud career. Red Rum famously won at Aintree as a two-year-old under Lester Piggott.
But it’s the other way around – from jumps to the flat – that’s the intriguing element. That’s because Ethical Diamond is just the latest example of what can be achieved with a little daring and, of course, the right horse.
Vintage Crop won a couple of novice hurdles and ran in a Champion Hurdle before twice winning the Irish St Leger and transforming international competition with a landmark Melbourne Cup success in 1993.
Another Dermot Weld star, Rite Of Passage, ran in three hurdle races before landing the 2010 Ascot Gold Cup. The Mullins stalwart Wicklow Brave was able to win an Irish Leger in 2016 and at Grade One level over flights.
In the past, the legendary Sea Pigeon swapped between the codes to notable effect during hurdling’s golden period. Go back even further and Le Paillon ran third in a Champion Hurdle in 1947 before winning the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe that year.
Not every horse competing over jumps is either bred to make an impression on the flat or equipped to do so. Some owners aren’t interested in it either. A reverse snobbery can even apply. The two codes are so different that different talents are required.
There’s also the reality that many middle-ranking flat horses that used to be bought to go jumping are now being sold to markets around the world, where prize money levels can make them a sound investment.
Ethical Diamond cost Margaret Heffernan and her family 320,000 Guineas (about €380,000) after only three races on the flat. He went seven starts before winning a maiden hurdle for Mullins in February. But over time, his latent talent has emerged.
That doesn’t mean there’s some reservoir of potential top talent lurking in the National Hunt ranks. But performances like we’ve seen in the last week suggest plenty of others might do well to see if more flat races of some kind can be won with what are regarded as National Hunt horses.
Even mile-and-a-half races here are increasingly perceived to be stamina contests and although the breeding industry is working all the time towards more and more speed the programme book is largely unchanged.
Mullins mightn’t be saying what other surprises he has up his sleeve. But others might do well to check out what National Hunt performers they have that might also be able to make a mark on the flat.
Something for the Weekend
The first race of the season over Aintree’s famed Grand National fences is tomorrow’s Grand Sefton Chase, where the Skelton runner Jet Plane (2.40) can go one better than when runner-up over course and distance in April’s Foxhunters.
Before that, Lantry Lady (11.53) can strike on her second start over fences in Gowran’s opener. Testing conditions will be right up her street, and she has that experience edge over rival Break My Soul.
