Bryan Cooper and Don Cossack entering the winner's enclosure at Cheltenham© Photo Healy Racing
Potential is fine but fulfilling it requires delivery. After replacing Davy Russell as Gigginstown’s No. 1 jockey, Bryan Cooper had been the ‘next-big-thing’ for some time. Many weren’t convinced, doubting his age and inexperience for such a high-profile job, for delivering when it counted. But when it counted most of all, Cooper’s judgement, nerve and skill delivered in style with Don Cossack’s Gold Cup success. The phrase ‘next-big-thing’ needs to lose a word, and it isn’t ‘big’ or ‘thing.’
No doubt it is unfair to hang such definitive verdicts on a single race but top jockeys are judged on their ability to get it right in the top contests. It’s what separates them. Competence is enough 95 per cent of the time. Delivering under pressure is the acid test. Losing is bad enough; losing amid ‘what if’s’ is much worse, which is why the big boys are paid the big bucks - to eliminate them.
There have been ‘what ifs’ about some of Cooper’s high-profile rides, notably his effort on Don Cossack in the 2015 Ryanair which even Gordon Elliott famously described as “deplorable.” Michael O’Leary’s blunt business-is-business style was all over his dismissal of Russell so while having the pick of such a powerful string is great it can’t be a total picnic either working under the stress of such expectation.
Cooper had ridden seven Grade 1 winners for O’Leary this season before Cheltenham but the festival’s overarching importance meant it inevitable everything would focus on Cooper’s choice of what to ride in the race that is his boss’ Holy racing Grail: if the 23 year old’s brains were sizzling before, they must have been frying for weeks at the idea of what the verdict would be if he got it wrong between Don Cossack and Don Poli.
But he didn’t get it wrong. Those of us convinced Don Cossack possessed a touch of the flat-track-bully about him were as wrong about that as we were about Don Poli having taken the mickey for most of his career. In hindsight it is obvious Don Poli really is pretty one-paced and that Don Cossack needs decent ground to be at his imperious best. But it wasn’t obvious beforehand.
Technically nothing Cooper did in the race itself was exceptional but the ride was notably cool and composed and confident in the circumstances. It was the sort of ‘no excuses’ ride which characterises the very top riders, delivering in spades when it counted most: as O’Leary said, not bad for 23.
Curiously enough, now that the furore has died down a little, it’s hard to stay too upset with Rich ‘Switch’ Ricci over the whole Vautour Ryanair-Gold Cup saga, although admittedly I didn’t have anything ante-post about the horse for the Gold Cup.
There’s no doubt the American owner has become a lot more visible and vocal since becoming executive chairman of Betbright but in terms of his ‘Gold Cup or stay at home’ prediction for Vautour he appeared guilty of little more than letting his mouth run off for the sake of saying something, hardly an unknown occurrence within racing.
To his credit, he didn’t afterwards sulk about media stitch-ups or declare that would be the end of him trying to give the betting public little more than waffle in future: his apology appeared sincere, even though it’s pretty clear the final say in which race, if any, Vautour ran in was firmly Willie Mullins’.
After Vautour’s victory the champion trainer made a point of outlining the chain of events surrounding the horse’s leading into Cheltenham. There’s a ‘no-win’ quandary for trainers in such situations: if Mullins had said the horse was working dire and then Vautour did what he did he would be accused of stitching up punters. Saying nothing, and putting Vautour in the race possibly best suited to him, simply generated a different kind of flak.
Nevertheless perhaps the most significant utterance in all of this came from Mullins, when, immediately after declaring Vautour for the Ryanair, he said: “I probably had it in the back of my mind all along.”
There were some superb controversy-free stories to come from Cheltenham 2016 and in terms of quality and visual impression, Douvan continues to look an animal with limitless potential. If that quality can be stretched out to longer distances there’s no knowing what he can ultimately achieve.
Sprinter Sacre hasn’t come back as good as he was but that was never going to happen: it was more than sufficient to prove the exception by coming back good enough to win.
Those who believe value betting involves big prices missed out on undoubtedly the best festival value of all in Thistlecrack and it’s an intriguing thought that maybe both he and Annie Power might yet get to face each other over fences.
Cheltenham’s real negative story however was the seven equine fatalities, the festival’s highest casualty rate in a decade. Acknowledging the reality that horses get killed in National Hunt racing doesn’t make it contradictory to ponder the implications of such a grim toll.
That more extreme animal rights groups will never be happy about racing doesn’t mean the industry can simply be dismissive of how it is perceived. Jump racing can never be safe but every step must be taken, and be seen to be taken, to make it as safe as possible in terms of animal welfare.
The industry can then face the public in terms of animal welfare with the self-confidence so conspicuously lacking through the whole Victoria Pendleton sideshow which racing somehow conspired to turn centre-stage on its day of days.
Pendleton did very well and good luck to her: but if profile was what racing was after it got an entirely predictable sort of profile, such as one dispiriting headline on a major newspaper website — “Victoria Pendleton delivers shock fifth place after Don Cossack wins Cheltenham Gold Cup.”
So what’s the 2017 gimmick going to be?
