Not many owners could see their 2-1 favourite finish out of the money in the Stan James Champion Hurdle and still wind up with a 1-2 but Buveur D'Air's defeat of the gallant My Tent Or Yours at Cheltenham on Tuesday proved just how singular a figure JP McManus continues to be.
It is 35 years since the 66-year-old businessman won his first festival race with Mister Donovan and the more continentally titled Buveur D'Air was No 50. It was also a record sixth success in hurdling's most coveted prize.
Figures-wise, the trainer of both first and second, Nicky Henderson, matched the Champion Hurdle half-dozen and trumped his owner's 50 by reaching 57 festival victories overall as Altior had earlier landed the Racing Post Arkle.
McManus’s apparent No 1 hope, Yanworth, finished only seventh but in Cheltenham terms it was very much an ‘establishment’ result.
Henderson may cut an Old Etonian contrast to the Limerick man, whose working life began driving bulldozers. Yet decades after first being bitten by the Cheltenham festival both men show no sign of wanting an antidote. If the consequence is success, then the basis seems to be trust.
Dominance
Buveur D’Air began this season over fences but McManus revealed: “Nicky insisted he went back hurdling – in the end I let him have his way!
"I can't remember exactly what Nicky said but he wanted to go back hurdling before any of the doubts about Faugheen and Annie Power. I just let him get on with it; he knows best."
The outcome was dominance of what had appeared to a wide-open Champion Hurdle as Noel Fehily powered the winner clear of his stable companion who finished runner-up in the race for a third time, and a fourth time at the festival.
Henderson had earlier seen his 1-4 hotpot Altior secure him a record sixth Arkle and he said: “The horse Buveur D’Air beat easily first time out over fences was second to Altior and I wondered had I got it wrong. But it’s all worked out.”
The one blot on the horizon was that Henderson’s former stable jockey, and McManus’s current number one rider, Barry Geraghty, was sitting at home recovering from broken ribs. The trainer, however, stressed the team aspect of McManus’s huge racing operation.
Logical pick
“There is a pretty strong board behind the company, with JP as chairman, and they are just great to train for. When I said hurdling was what I wanted to do, they were totally behind it.
“He wasn’t very impressive on his second chase start at Warwick and I knew we were going down the wrong road. He needed to revert back to hurdles. If I had got wrong it would have looked a very silly decision. But the great thing about JP and his team is they are a great team,” Henderson said.
Whether Geraghty would have opted for Buveur D’Air is an unknown although McManus said he “wouldn’t have been surprised”.
It was the Co Cork-born rider, Fehily, who was the logical pick for the ride once Geraghty was ruled out and the veteran jockey secured a second Champion Hurdle success after Rock On Ruby in 2012.
“This is a class animal and I won on him at Aintree last year. I love him to bits,” he said. “It’s a privilege to ride in these colours.”
McManus’s green and gold silks have been Cheltenham fixture for decades but it is his immense investment throughout the industry that underpinned Fehily’s sentiments.
They were echoed throughout Cheltenham after this latest Champion Hurdle victory.
