The London Times of 10 March 1922 drily recorded: ‘It is very seldom that Irish racing and hunting people make a determined attack on an English meeting without paying at least their expenses. One gathers that they did more than that yesterday.’ The Times was chronicling Connemara Black’s triumph in the Foxhunters’ Challenge Cup – a victory greeted as Ireland’s first at Cheltenham.
Things have moved on since then and at last year’s Cheltenham Festival Irish-trained horses won 18 of the 28 races, not quite as spectacular as their feat of winning 23 in 2021 but still a phenomenon that had England’s racing fraternity scratching around feverishly for excuses. When the Anglo-Irish rivalry renews at this year’s Festival, few are expecting a different outcome: the Irish are 9-1 on to prevail again. Looking at races that set up the champions of the future, there is just one English-trained horse in the first seven quoted for the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle. In the Triumph Hurdle, the first four quoted are all trained in Ireland and in the Champion Bumper none of the first eight in the betting is trained outside Ireland: four of them come from Willie Mullins’s yard, which clocked up ten winners at last year’s Festival.
Let us hope that the conflicting patriotisms are all we have to be concerned about next week, although I fear that will not be the case. English jockeys who have nevertheless found it hard to comply have had a bedding-in period to get used to new rules on use of the whip. Their Irish counterparts haven’t and top jockeys involved in more close finishes are likely to be under the greatest strain, facing penalties and disqualifications. It isn’t a good time to be first enforcing the new rules and a crucial week for the sport could be dominated by the wrong sort of headlines.
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