Racing: A painful time for the heart and the wallet

0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Mar 17, 2002 | by ALASTAIR DOWN

YOU may have read about those poor souls who, under anaesthetic for a serious operation, find they can feel every cut of the surgeon's knife.

Well, on the punting front Cheltenham was an equally agonising experience, with every Baldrick-like "cunning plan" turning to ashes over the three-day bookies' benefit.

You just had to lie there powerless as the pain increased and ever deeper incisions were made into the wallet.

In the usual weary post-mortems on Friday very few of the professionals I spoke to had shown a profit on the meeting and a lot of well-known trainers and jockeys had a distinctly thin time of it.

Mick Fitzgerald was second favourite for the jockeys' title but didn't finish in the first four all week, Norman Williamson drew a blank and it took until race 20 out of 21 before AP McCoy got on the scoreboard after five seconds.

The Champion Hurdle produced far greater sadness than it did joy. First the mighty Istabraq was pulled up and then Valiramix crashed to the turf when seemingly with the race at his mercy.

The death of Valiramix changed the on-course mood from celebration to gloom in a trice and somehow the rest of the day didn't seem to matter any more.

To be frank, this was not a vintage Festival and it took Best Mate's Gold Cup win to lift everyone's spirits.

Trainer Henrietta Knight is a former convent schoolteacher and Terry Biddlecombe a former hellraiser of legendary status. On the face of it their marriage is an unlikely one, but it is hugely successful union and they are just like a pair of teenagers.

Terry's language has more F's than a Fyffe's banana, but Henrietta can give as good as she gets and has a wicked sense of humour. She is famous for not being able to watch any race that she has a runner in, but on Thursday she found a television in a tent by the weighing room and saw every fence that Best Mate jumped.

At just seven Best Mate is the real deal and there is no reason why there should not be even better to come. He jumps, stays and quickens - the three qualities vital in a top-class chaser.

But before anyone rushes to take 8-1 about next year's Gold Cup, remember it is over 30 years since a horse won two Gold Cups in a row and that was the extraordinary L'Escargot, who went on to beat Red Rum in a Grand National.

Two of my favourite jockeys - Ruby Walsh and AP - had galling weeks. Ruby was successful on Blowing Wind, but he fell at the last with the race at his mercy on Adamant Approach in the first race, thus handing victory to Irish banker Like-A-Butterfly.

Ruby was not best pleased and nor was Scots ring bookie Freddie Williams because it cost him pounds 225,000, having just laid a punter pounds 100,000 at 9-4 on the Butterfly!

Walsh chose the wrong one of Willie Mullins's in the Triumph - Scolardy won easily while he finished last on stable companion Heezapistol - and he was beaten less than two lengths on Commanche Court in the Gold Cup.

"So near but so ****ing far!" he said to me as he walked back to weigh in, but he still managed a smile of sorts. Astonishingly mature for 22, there will be other days for young Walsh, for my money the jockey who comes closest to the sheer brilliance of Tony McCoy.

AP will take time to recover from Valiramix's death and his haunted face was one of the enduring images of the meeting.

There is intense pressure on the man at the Festival - punters expect him to deliver, he is terrified of being on the wrong one of Pipey's and, for God's sake, he is only a youngster.

He is not a bad loser but after Valiramix - and as defeat followed defeat - he spiralled down into a whirlpool of black gloom.

I bet he takes Aintree by storm next month - and incidentally I saw nothing at Cheltenham to shake my conviction that Supreme Glory at 14-1 for the Grand National remains the each-way bet of the season.