With a kinder direction, the convolutions of fate here yesterday could have been working towards a fairy tale of the happy-ending genre. Instead, the panning out of events to a conclusion of bitter sadness and broken dreams owed more to the brothers grim.
The chain of circumstance began when Ruby Walsh, due to partner hot favourite Granit Jack for the champion trainer, Paul Nicholls, in the day’s feature, the Paddy Power Gold Cup, dislocated a shoulder in the second race in a brutal fall that killed his mount, Willyanwoody.
Granit Jack, the last to make the cut for yesterday’s contest, had an alternative engagement this afternoon, but Nicholls and owner John Hales decided to give young Liam Heard, one of the stable’s backroom riders, his chance. Heard was summoned from Uttoxeter to replace Walsh and, after a dash down the M5, made the deadline for weighing out with minutes to spare.
Heard rode a copybook race, and three fences out the 3-1 favourite’s grey coat made him easy to spot in the front rank, galloping smoothest of all. He took the lead approaching the penultimate obstacle, rose to it with ears pricked, flew like Pegasus, landed, took a stride. And, inexplicably, knuckled over and was dead on the instant, his neck broken.
“If only,” said Nicholls afterwards, “are the longest words. But in truth we wouldn’t have done anything differently. The horse was fit and well, Liam knows him well – he schooled him during the week – and he rode him exactly as we discussed in the time we had before the race. He was going beautifully and he would have dotted up. Perhaps he was going a little too well, and his momentum took him over. And he was unlucky – other horses have had the same sort of fall, and got up. The line between failure and success is just so small.”
Two fatalities, a crockedfirst-choice jockey and owners in tears do not make for a good day at the office but Nicholls, typically, retained a philosophical perspective. “Horses like Granit Jack don’t come along that often,” he said, “and sometimes this game is a hard one. But you have to accept the ups and downs. It’s Liam I feel most sorry for. It would have helped his career so much to have ridden a big winner like this.” Heard was unscathed, but Walsh – due to partner the reigning chasing champion, Kauto Star, in the Betfair Chase on Saturday and the rising star Denman in the Hennessy Gold Cup the following weekend – faces some time on the sidelines. “He is in a lot of pain,” said his agent and sister Jennifer Walsh, “but it could have been much, much worse. He’ll be out for a few weeks.”
The knowledge of shared risks was uppermost in the mind of the man who did triumph in the race, Graham Lee, even as he was unsaddling L’Antartique in the winner’s circle. “I’ve had a great day,” he said, “but my thoughts are with Ruby. That was a mother and father of a fall.”
Lee brought the 13-2 chance L’Antartique with a sustained run from off the pace to overhaul 33-1 hope Il Duce on the run-in and take the £68,424 prize by a neck. “A great ride,” said the winning trainer, Ferdy Murphy. “At the top of the hill I thought he had just got trapped, but this man keeps his cool and the gaps appeared for him.”
L’Antartique will now be stepped up in class – the Lexus Chase at Leopardstown next month is on his agenda.
A reminder that this arena can warm the heart as well as break it came in the afternoon’s finale when 11-year-old Sir Rembrandt, who pushed Best Mate all the way when runner-up in the Gold Cup here three years ago, shook off the years and a seeming decline with a spirited 13-length success in the three-and-a-half mile handicap.
It was the veteran’s first run for Victor Dartnell, having been transferred from Robert Alner. The Barnstaple-based trainer said: “He seemed to have lost his enthusiasm, but old horses sometimes benefit from a change of scenery, and it seems to have done the trick.”
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Source: Cheltenham: Two horses die on a day of pain for Walsh and Nicholls
